Samsara
by lilien passe
Summary: Written for Germancest Secret Santa 2013, in which complex narrative and existential crises abound, tracing Gilbert and Ludwig's existence through the years. Sort of.
1. Part One

Author's Notes

This was written for the 2013 Germancest Secret Santa. I got the lovely and talented Ariniad, who has been so supportive of my writing. Thank you so much for your wonderful fan art and kind commends. I appreciate them so much! This fic is very long! Very, very long, so I'll be posting it in three parts, the second and third of which will be on my fic blog. And I would also like to say thank you to Prince of Elsinore and Lynne for all their help editing and brainstorming and being good writing pals. You guys are the best.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy your present, Ariniad!

**Samsara**

**One**

December 18th, 2027.

It was a miracle the tree and him hadn't gotten better acquainted.

Gilbert stared out through the windshield at the pine not ten centimeters in front of his car and then slowly, slowly let his head rest against the steering wheel, ignoring the ear-splitting beep as the horn wailed.

Driving home for the holidays was always a hazardous affair. Now that he was a big-shot executive in Berlin (of a _video game company_, his mother would always grimly tag on whenever relatives showed the slightest bit of excitement), he'd lost what talents he'd gained driving through the mountains in winter. One of the benefits of growing up in a small village in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. The hairpin turns that he'd once rolled his eyes at now made him cling to the steering wheel like grim death, and he was sure his relatives would tease him mercilessly if he so much as hinted at a mild trepidation towards the steep grade.

With a shuddering sigh Gilbert carefully pushed himself up, glancing nervously out the passenger window at the drop to the depths below, and then put the car in reverse. A few panicked seconds of sliding later, he managed to get the thing rolling up the mountain again, his knuckles white and his face even paler than usual as the car slowly poked along.

When he pulled into his parents' driveway, nearly shitting himself out of relief, all the lights on the front porch suddenly blazed into life. Before he could extract himself from his car he was being forcibly yanked out by his father and pulled into a crushing bear hug. He bore the brunt of the chidings and smothering kisses from his mother as he was slowly pulled inside, his bags in the car forgotten. In a minute he was seated in front of the television where a Donald Duck cartoon was now playing to an audience of one twenty-five year old, a mug of mulled hot wine in his hand and a new lumpy scarf wrapped around his throat, making it hard to fiddle with his necklace as he was wont to do whenever forced to be quiescent, even for a moment. His parents were still bombarding him with questions about his job, the drive, his social life, and he answered them with the absent, automated response of years of loving interrogation.

He glanced around the room, sipping at his wine as the familiarity of his parents' home took away the last of his anxiety. The full tree in the corner, barely able to fit with its garlands of popcorn and holly and the glass ornaments his Czech grandmother had passed down. Fireplace roaring, the smell of gingerbread in the oven. His parents were traditionalists, like most of the village, and he proudly followed in their footsteps on most things. His friends in Berlin teased him about clinging to the old ways, but he always insisted they were only old when they died. Until then, they were alive. And nothing alive, reborn every year, could ever be old.

His mother, with her wide hips and wild brown hair, sat down next to him, wrapping her arm around his shoulder.

"All the boys will be helping raise the tree tomorrow," she said. "They're asking about you."

"They always ask which is ridiculous," Gilbert muttered into his wine, "When have I ever missed a year."

"They still talk about France," his father spoke up, running a hand through his cropped graying hair.

"That was one year!" Gilbert protested, pushing himself up. "_One year_ I get invited to go to France for Christmas, all expenses paid, and they act like I personally set the tree on fire."

His mother rolled her eyes and lightly hit his shoulder.

"You're important to them," she drawled. "Stop acting like people caring is such a burden."

Gilbert pursed his lips, wanting to argue his point further, but the wine made him give up the fight.

"I suppose," he muttered, leaning against his mother a bit more, fingers idly toying with the scarf around his neck. "And it's not like I'm the only one they harass. That… what's his name. The baker's son. He hasn't been here for at least ten years. How the hell can a baker afford boarding school. It's ridiculous."

"Maybe he's a wizard, Gilly. Ever thought about that?"

Gilbert gave his father a bland look before turning back to the television.

"You shouldn't be allowed to make antiquated pop culture references," he muttered. "It honestly frightens me."

His father laughed and reached forward to clap him on the shoulder.

"Sardonic as ever. The guys are going to have a field day with you, Mr. CFO."

Gilbert glanced at his father, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, well they'd better watch it. I don't relish havin' snow shoved down my shirt like last—

December 18th, 1917.

Ludwig blinked the frost from his lashes, his hands refusing to close completely around his cup of water. One sip. God all he wanted was one sip and he couldn't even fucking lift the cup. Couldn't hold his pencil to write, to do the one thing that provided escape and solace. His notebook was gathering dust in his breast pocket, and the words were atrophying in his head. The narrative growing stale.

He felt the ground shake as someone approached, and he quickly stood to attention, abandoning his mug. His stomach clenched with nervousness when he saw that it was the lieutenant. Terrifying at under a hundred eighty centimeters. Somehow. Crazed eyes and too many medals for how young he was.

The other soldiers in the makeshift dugout canteen stood to attention as well, but the lieutenant waved his hand, bidding them to relax.

"Too damn cold for all that," the man said in his normal drawling tone. He stopped in front of one soldier to rebutton an undone snap on his coat, clamping his hand over the man's mouth when he started to apologize.

"Oh, and far, far too cold for that," he said cheerfully, pale eyes glowing from underneath his visor cap. The soldier gave a terrified nod and the lieutenant continued walking.

Ludwig held his breath as the man approached, and slowly let it out as he passed. The man was new to the regiment, transferred from a more active part of the front because of some injury or other hush- hush business. Not that there was an inactive part. Fusillade nightly and constant wailing in the deep.

The lieutenant paused at the end of the line, and then quickly started walking backwards, coming to a halt in front of Ludwig. Ludwig did his best to stand to attention (but not too much attention – he didn't fancy a similar gentle berating), and flinched when the man reached up with one finger to gently tilt up his helmet.

Ludwig swallowed heavily, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead.

The man regarded him calmly, his teeth making little clicking noises every so often.

"Name?"

"Ludwig, sir."

The man's voice was soft for the medals. Too gentle for the bombastic outside, and Ludwig wondered in a flash of sick curiosity if this was how the man spoke to his wife. The men all had two voices, one reserved for the pictures in their pockets.

"Does a last name come with that, Private Ludwig?"

Ludwig shook his head, feeling like a folded picture in a pocket.

"No, sir," he said, unable to keep the slight trepidation from throttling his voice.

"Orphan? Or just disowned."

"The former, sir. They made a last name for me but I've –"

Ludwig fell dumb, a little worry eating at his head. What was it. They'd given him a last name when he'd enlisted, the memory was so tangible it had a smell, a feel to the paper, a scratchy bristle of the man's unshaved cheeks but his lips were mute and hazy. A last name, what was it…

Ludwig swallowed heavily.

"…I must have forgotten it, sir."

The man's eyes glinted under his cap, and he leaned in closer, the shadows of his face still too hidden to read.

"Good for Germany, then," he said quietly. "No one to cry for you when you're gone and an entire nation to pay for your pine box. I'm surprised they aren't breeding more like you from the whores in the streets with no last names."

The lieutenant lowered his hand.

"Dismissed, the rest of you. Back to your dirt chairs."

The men exchanged puzzled looks, but one by one they sat again, hands clutched around bread and water.

After a moment the lieutenant gestured for Ludwig to sit as well, following suit shortly after. He toed the aluminum cup, pushing it towards Ludwig.

Ludwig stared at the vessel and its sloshing insides, and then carefully, agonizingly wrapped his fingers around it. The grip wasn't strong enough to lift. For show only.

"There's coffee you know. In the officers' section," the lieutenant said, hugging his knees against his chest in a childish posture, his pointy chin resting atop. "It's warm. Tastes like dirt, but it's warm. Would you like some, Private Ludwig?"

"No thank you, sir," Ludwig said, confusion making him forget his weakness. He lifted the cup and it fell from his hand after only a moment. He cursed softly and rubbed his fingers together, humiliated when he saw the splash of liquid against the man's boots.

"God – sorry, sir," he said quickly, reaching out to wipe it away. But a little touch to his fingers stopped him. The lieutenant toed the cup again.

"It's water, Ludwig. Not acid. Drink."

Ludwig obediently wrapped his hand around the cup again, but knew better than to try.

"I can't – sir, my fingers –," he started to say, full of exhausted apology.

Gloved hands rested over his own, making his fingers burn and the frostbitten metal warm at the touch.

The visor fell back, revealing the lieutenant's gaunt, noble features, tired lips, blonde hair so kissed by the sun it was almost white, unkempt.

"Drink," he said again, and his voice was a photograph's.

Ludwig obeyed without question, lifting the cup to his lips and drinking the near frozen water greedily, a drop running down his cheek and falling to—

December 18th, 1947.

Waves lapped against the shore. Snowy waves, frost tipped and lazy.

There was gravel underneath his cheek, and without opening his eyes, he knew he was alone.

With a quiet groan he dragged himself out of the shore, clutching at a rock as the lonely sea bade him return. It licked his heels, covering them in crystals that spread up and up to make his bones brittle and his flesh black.

It was a very long time before he moved past its reach. Trees, spindly fingers stretching up in supplication to the gray sky. Thorny underbrush, and it was there he rested, not feeling their sting as cold settled in below his sodden clothing.

He pushed his frozen hair out of his eyes, tossing aside the bits that broke off. He could hear the sea around him, four sides, its maw fighting to swallow the tiny spit of land. Smeared charcoal for a horizon in every direction, the sun hidden. Gentle snow. Soundlessly invasive.

Practical knowledge, as Kant would say. That he should know a sun to be there. Above the clouds and the snow. Somehow he knew, somehow he'd seen the sun before, when all he could remember was gravel against his cheek, water in his eyes and lungs. Blackened fingertips.

He stared at his hands, the flesh reddened and broken in places from the salt and the cold. His nails were dying purple before his eyes, and dimly he thought of fire. More practical knowledge. That fire could exist.

He felt around in the pockets of the coat he wore. No name stitched into the collar. A few sodden biscuits in a paper bag. An ornate fountain pen he longed to discard for some inane reason but clung to instead. And inside the other a small bag, with flint, and a small box that read "Wasserdicht" in plain script. He opened the box and pulled out one of the matches. He struck it against the flint and stared in fascination at the small curling flame. It was blue like the sky with a sun in it. A deep, deep blue. So rich it made his eyes smart, that there could be such a color when all there was was gray, even his hair, his clothes. Gray and pallid and then there was the beautiful match in his fingers.

He looked around for something to burn, to make a fire, but the brambles were sodden and the trees covered in a thin layer of ice. And he was cold and his skin was red and broken. Would break more if he should move.

An acrid smell reached his nostrils, and he turned to find the match eating through his fingernails. He quickly dropped it, the words 'burn' and 'infection' dictating his actions when his conscious mind could not.

In the box were twelve more matches. Each promised blue and a small warmth.

He tilted his head back, eyes welling up with the gray sky, the gray sea, the sun that must be there somewhere, high above the clouds.

He licked his split lips, and uttered the only words he could feel.

"Well, fuc—

December 19th, 2027.

The blizzard had postponed the tree-raising ceremony (if it could even be called something so pretentious) to the next day. That morning, Gilbert dutifully bundled up, dutifully ate his breakfast (spilling some on the scarf – honestly why his mother tried to force feed him when he was already dressed for sub-Arctic conditions was beyond him), and dutifully trundled out the door.

His parents' house was the last one on a windy street that led into town. It was a ten minute walk to the square, and the gentle snow-fall wasn't enough to cover the tracks of the others who had gone ahead of him to set things up. Already he could hear stentorian voices from the square, slightly muffled by the snow. He rounded the corner to see the tree lying on its side in front of the large city hall, the impossible limestone façade of the building nearly blending in with the white around it. He crossed the street, dodging the few cars that went trundling by, and headed towards the edifice. The city hall comprised a little island in the middle of the square, with streets making up the water and shops lining the far banks. Strands of lights stretched from city hall over the streets to connect to the buildings on all four sides, and each branch of every tree around the square had been carefully wrapped with lights so that at night their forms glowed in perfect silhouettes.

The usual crowd was gathered around the massive tree: boys from local families (only ages 15 and up, the younger kids got too excited or showed off too much and got hurt), returning college students with sullen looks on their faces, Gilbert's generation of those that were clutched in the frenzy of nostalgia, and then the older men who seemed content to drink cider and sit around instructing everything.

Gilbert made his way over to his proper group, exchanging the requisite greetings as everyone silently sized him up. He was one of the few large successes in their town. CFO of a company (a _video game _company, his mother's voice reminded him), and as in every small town, the gossip mill was fierce. Fierce and fucking obnoxious.

He bore the brunt of the questions with his usual cheer, deflecting those he didn't feel like answering (when was he going to bring down a girlfriend, huh, people were starting to talk) and tossing back ones that were just plain ridiculous (how much cider did he think he could drink before he threw up like he'd done when he was seventeen).

As he spoke his eyes scanned the crowd, placing names with slightly altered faces one by one until nearly everyone was identified. A few awkward questions later revealed the portly man with the unfortunate neckbeard to be a fiancé of one of the returning college students, and the reedy fellow was a much-shrunk Anders from two streets over. Atkins. He swore by it.

Whatever the fuck that was.

But that left one mystery man. He was keeping to himself at the fringes of the group, but the easy way that he drank his cider and his relaxed posture pegged him as not-a-guest. His rather severe hairstyle (seriously who slicked their hair back like that and then put a hat on, what even was the point), blue eyes, and solid build practically screamed army, but Gilbert knew his mother would have told him about any enlisters. Again, gossip mill. Fierce, etc.

Gilbert ran through the list of possibilities, but setting aside men returning from the dead (unfortunate car accident a few years back), there was really only one person he could be. The baker's son. Returned from his years of boarding school (and hopefully university) for the first time in years. He was a good deal younger than Gilbert (relatively speaking) if memory served, which put him around twenty, twenty- one or thereabouts. Probably still enrolled in school. But he lacked the cynicism of his peers, if the absence of sneering and complaining were anything to go by, and that in and of itself was intriguing. Plus he wasn't being an asshole with replicating the Inquisition, which already endeared him to Gilbert. That and curiosity were enough to propel him.

After draining his cider, Gilbert sidled over to the other man, not bothering to mask his curiosity.

"Hey!" he said cheerfully, rocking back and forth on his heels a bit.

Blue eyes peered down at him and lips quirked up in a little smile.

"Hey yourself," the younger man said, his booming voice making Gilbert go a little weak in the knees. Fuck he had a type, didn't he. Best keep that under wraps as much as possible. Plus the guy was twenty- one or whatever – seven or eight years made a huge difference when it came to those sorts of things, as a few unfortunate experiences had taught him.

Gilbert raised an eyebrow in response, his grin widening.

"So. You're uh… the baker's son, right? L…u…?"

He trailed off, silently prompting the younger man.

After a bit of requisite eye-rolling and sighing, the man said a dull, "Ludwig. And maybe you can tell me why no one can remember my name."

Gilbert laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around at the other men.

"Well y'know. Timeless little village an' all that. Shit sorta slips through the cracks if it's been gone a while. Don't blame them."

Ludwig snorted, his cheeks turning red.

"Did you just liken me to shit in your little metaphor?"

"Well that's what you get for leavin' or… somethin'," Gilbert said lamely, his own cheeks flushing a bit from something other than the biting wind. He stuck out his hand, putting a smile back on his face.

"Gilbert, by the way. Don't expect you t' remember it since you'll be leavin' again soon, right? For… what was it again?"

Ludwig took his hand without hesitation and gave it a little shake before letting go.

"I knew that already, actually. Earl's son, right? Down the street? And Saarland. I go to university there," he supplied, falling into what had to be routine answers. Gilbert made a little 'ah' noise of understanding, trying not to feel too pleased that the man remembered him even after a decade-long absence. A name and lineage only, sure, but still. Why that of all things should make him feel smug he had no idea, but he clung to the feeling of superiority like a bird in a storm, fingers delving under his scarf to fiddle with his necklace to distract himself. "Necklace "he called it but really it was just a ring on a chain, good for diversion, bad for fashion. Ugly thing.

Before he could further harass Ludwig, the call went out for them to man the ropes. With a stoic sigh Gilbert went where they directed him, ending up on the same rope as Ludwig. He tilted his head back, grinning up at the taller man.

"If this thing falls, don't let me be catapulted, okay?"

"Not curious to see how far you could go?" Ludwig asked, his voice carrying that same deadpan humor.

Gilbert let out a burst of surprised laughter, nearly missing the signal to pull. He tugged back on the rope, straining to help lift the gigantic tree into its setting. He ended up with his back pressed against Ludwig's chest, and somehow through the thick layers of clothing, he swore he could feel the younger man's heart beating frantically. The vibration was enough to make him tilt his head back again, a questioning look on his face.

"You uh… you okay?" he managed to say, heels still digging into the snow.

With a heavy thud the tree landed upright in the ground, and rough hands gently pushed him away. Ludwig's face was red again, and the younger man tugged his knit scarf up to cover his nose as he mumbled, "I'm not used to the cold anymore. That's a—

December 19th, 1917.

There was a hand in the dirt.

It was missing a body and a wrist, and when Ludwig saw it he wondered, for a split second, if there was a lost and found in the trenches like there'd been at his university. If someone was looking for it, how would they ever get it back.

Only when someone pushed against his back, a cold, frantic touch, did he realize he'd been staring, and he didn't need to look to know who it was. The only one who would stay at the front of the line with them. Who would give away his coffee and gloves – even now Ludwig was wearing them, too small for his repulsive sausage fingers that he hated but that genetics said made him strong.

"Move your ass, Private!" the lieutenant bellowed, his voice carrying above the shells and wires and yellowed gas masks.

The hand was forgotten.

Ludwig scrambled for purchase along the land they hoped to reclaim. The trench in front of him, across the pathetic dirt they were dying for, inching their way west towards the distant tower and its men. A shell landed near them, sending up dirt and bones and deafening noise. His head still ringing, Ludwig dove into the trench, turning to help down the man after him.

But the lieutenant was already sprinting back, his gun abandoned next to the man made ravine.

Ludwig watched him go, feeling more helpless than he ever had. On the far side more soldiers were approaching. He knew this, and it made him grab for his gun and fire. Mines took care of most. Little pressure spots in what they were fighting over, and when his bullet kissed a skull he abandoned his post – just for a moment only a moment – to look behind him.

Relief washed over him when he saw the man helping another towards the trench. Even above the noise he could hear him, cursing and threatening the other to keep moving. Like a hero in an epic. One of the great, long ones Ludwig used to spend time with by the fire, his nose inches from the pages as he imbibed the words.

Ludwig picked up his gun and shot again, grazing a knee, enough to knock down the figure and ensure it would stay part of the dirt.

A thud behind him sounded the lieutenant's return, and a moment later the man joined him, his own gun at the ready and blood staining his mud-caked hair.

"Lost my helmet," the lieutenant said cheerfully, firing off a round. "Saved my life, though. I should probably get another one!"

Wordlessly Ludwig undid his own helmet and set it atop the lieutenant's head. He received a surprised look in return, and an incredulous, "What the hell was that for?"

"Gloves," Ludwig muttered, the leather around his fingers squeaking just a bit as he pulled the trigger.

The lieutenant fell silent, and for a long while there was only the sound of harbingers to hold conversations with.

Suddenly the man spoke again, and Ludwig leaned in to listen.

"I've been thinking, Private. About your last name."

The words were spoken so casually, as though over coffee or beer and bare hands.

"What about it?"

The lieutenant hummed in thought, quickly abandoning it as he grabbed Ludwig, tugging him to the ground in time for a shell to explode right in front of them.

Ludwig covered his head with his hands, bits of metal and dirt raining down on them. A little tap to his shoulder made him look up, and he stared through the dirt at the lieutenant, a smile somehow on the man's bloody face.

"You should take mine!" he yelled over the din of war. His smile never wavered.

Ludwig blinked in surprise, thinking back to the hand in the dirt. There'd been a ring on the wedding finger, hadn't there. A name on the inside, he could have found it. Could have taken it.

"Wh—sir, I don't understand!" he yelled back, ducking again as another shell exploded near them.

Through the rain he could hear the man laugh, felt a hand on his shoulder pull him close and a forehead press against his own.

"My last name, Private!"

The hand on his shoulder gave a little squeeze, and when he opened his eyes all he could see was the lieutenant's face so close to his. Still perfect with blood in his eyes and mouth.

"We're like brothers, you and I! Orphans both! Doesn't seem fair that I should have one while you wander the earth a single name! And if I'm called away – God knows it's just a matter of hours now – you can have a name to keep you company!"

Ludwig furrowed his brow in slight confusion, and on a whim reached into the man's pocket and tugged out his ID. He squinted to read the name without his glasses, his lips curling into a little smile.

"Beilschmidt? A bit ostentatious, don't you think?"

He received a light hit to the back of his head, and heard the lieutenant laugh.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Private! Do you want it or not?"

Ludwig bit his lip, wondering if it was permissible to feel anything akin to happiness so deep in the earth.

He nodded, and the arm around his shoulders tightened, and when he spoke the words were nearly swallowed up.

"Thank you, Lieuten—

December 19th, 1947.

There were ten left in the little box.

He counted them. Over and over again for lack of anything better to do. Ten matches in a row, lined up heads pressed together for warmth.

He'd moved past the rocks, into a little guarded area that only had a bit of snow. His coat had been fashioned into a tent, and it caught the rest as it fell. It had taken him a very long time to move. His legs were hurting and his feet were swollen in his boots. He was afraid to take them off.

But that fear was slowly dwindling. There were more pressing issues at hand.

Ten matches. If he lit two a day he wouldn't even be able to make it a week. But last time when he'd struck the flint against the phosphorous he'd seen an icier blue. It was so beautiful, so unnatural that he'd lost himself in it. When he came to his nails and fingertips were burnt and the match was little more than a blackened ember. But that color was so lovely, so crystal and dear that he'd immediately lit another one, drinking in the speck of color like a man wanting nothing more than to drown himself.

As the blue disappeared into a wisp of smoke, he'd heard a voice. A flash of yellow and bright and a deep voice that made him feel weak. The more spiritual part of him that had only just discovered religion called it God. The cynic, who had only been born following the religious, called it dying. His mind supplied words like 'hallucination' and 'oxygen deprivation' to add to his growing list of worries.

But the part that had desperately struck the match. No reason in the action, instinctual and feral had dismissed both other sides. It knew. Deep in the crevices of his brain it knew that voice. And there were ten little matches in a row that promised he could hear it again.

But slowly. He had to move slowly. Ration them.

He ate snow for water, the sharp ache of hunger not enough to be cause for worry.

Five days.

He'd sleep the rest of the time. One match during the day. One at night. Sleep the rest.

There were no thoughts of escape. Of how he'd arrived, there was only water everywhere and an empty bottle for a head.

Five days to strike a match. To hear the voice that was God and swan-song mirage and human in one. A dear voice.

He lay down and pillowed his head against his arm, closing his eyes.

The snow continued to fall, blanketing the ground around his little makeshift tent.

Ten matches clutched in his hand, waiting their turn to be burnt at the stake.

What had the match said in its dying moments?

He furrowed his brow as sleep started to overtake him.

"Something… about ink," he mumbled to himself. "And pens to pape—

December 20th, 2027.

A freak blizzard had almost knocked the damn tree down.

It was seven at night and black as pitch outside when one of the older men on the town's committee pounded on their door and yelled at Gilbert to come help. Earl too, if he wanted, but they had to move.

Gilbert's mother threatened bodily harm on his father if he headed out, and Gilbert was bitterly unsurprised to note she didn't share the same reservations about her son plowing headlong into a blizzard. He'd always hated the cold, the way it crept into your skin and arrested your body. He liked control. Complete control and cold took that away from you with chattering teeth and frozen fingers and skin that burned when you ran it under even lukewarm water.

But winter brought the tree. It brought tradition and gratitude towards snow for a few days a year, and for that, Gilbert resigned himself to pushing his way through a blizzard.

Well that, and a few other things.

Because he was masochistic, clearly. Lest he forget.

And the second reason was already struggling with a hammer, yelling at whatever incompetent fifteen- year-old was trying to hold a stake steady against the ground.

"What kind of idiot uses their _thumb _to hold down a nail?!" Ludwig snapped, his voice booming over the square, echoing against the all but empty shops.

Gilbert winced as he noticed the tell-tale look of embarrassment and dismay on the fifteen-year-old's face that usually meant humiliated tears were soon to follow. He hurried to crouch down in the snow next to the two, patting the kid's shoulder as he grinned and said, "Hey, I think they need help gettin' the food ready for the volunteers. Much cushier job, you should go jump on that bandwagon."

The kid gave Gilbert a grateful look and quickly scrambled to his feet and away from Ludwig. The blonde was still glaring daggers at the kid as he ran away, and with a little sigh Gilbert reached out with his scarf to lightly smack the man in the head.

Ludwig jerked away, a look of utter shock on his face that made Gilbert grin.

"What?" Ludwig asked, too dazed to be properly irritated.

"Stop that," Gilbert commanded, holding the stake and gesturing towards the hammer. "You gotta know when t' yell an' when it's just not worth it. Kid was a quiverin' mess. He was brand name gelatin dessert. No need t' scream yourself hoarse at a little jiggler."

"I wasn't… screaming," Ludwig muttered, barely audible above the storm. He quickly got to work with the hammer, and Gilbert was too fixated on not letting his grip move to talk. In a moment the stake was in, and by the time they stood and moved to help with the others they were more or less taken care of.

Without work to preoccupy them, the two stood awkwardly next to the tree until Ludwig suddenly sneezed, rocketing backwards.

Gilbert couldn't help it. He burst out laughing and clapped the younger man on the shoulder.

"Better out than in, good for you," he teased, earning a half-hearted glare. Ludwig petulantly shrugged off the touch, but didn't move any further than that, even as he grumbled, "You're awfully familiar for someone I only met yesterday."

"Oh don't give me that. You know we're a tight-knit community, all that stupid kumbayah horseshit," Gilbert said cheerfully, wrinkling his nose against the cold. "Even if you move away an' we forget your name, we're still family, right?"

Ludwig furrowed his brow, a troubled look on his face.

"Family… right," he said quietly, tugging his scarf a bit tighter around his neck. He fell silent after that and seemed unwilling to move even as the storm raged around them. Gilbert shifted from foot to foot, side-eyeing the cider and donuts the frozen volunteers were gamely munching on. Just as he was about to suggest they go avail themselves to some unnecessary carbohydrates, Ludwig spoke up again.

"My family's bakery is on the square. They ah… they made the donuts and things, so if you want something a bit fresher I could… we could go there and get out of the cold," he muttered, sounding as though the whole idea were pure torture even as he suggested it.

Gilbert found himself hesitating, not out of dislike (God that wasn't even close to being a problem) but more because the square and the hubbub about the tree promised a familiarity and conversational topic that he found comforting. If he had to be honest, once people scratched past his amiable sumptuous surface they tended to be disappointed with the lackluster nougat inside. And for whatever reason – his good looks, lack of charming personality, whatever – the thought of Ludwig finding him unpleasant company or, god forbid, dull, was unnerving.

Which was why Gilbert was ready to punch himself in the head when he said cheerfully, "Sure! Beats the hell out of trudgin' back home through the snow."

Ludwig gave a terse little nod and gestured for Gilbert to follow him.

They made their way across the square, Gilbert greeting people as they were addressed, and once inside the small bakery he let out a quiet moan of relief and quickly shed his wet scarf, hat, and gloves.

"Only good thing about a blizzard's the feelin' you get when you leave it," he said, taking a seat at the table his parents and he used to frequent when he'd been young. Closest to the kitchens, usually was moved when there was a busy line. The bakery was completely empty now, and no lights were on in the back. It had the requisite homey, rustic feel of any local bakery, and the smell of bread lingered in the roof beams and wooden chairs. Permanent toast furniture.

Ludwig merely grunted in response, hanging up his own coat and hat on a little rack next to the entrance to the other side of the counter. He leaned against it, surveying Gilbert for a moment before he said, "When you were little, you used to always order the same thing. And I can't for the life of me understand why I still remember that."

Gilbert laughed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, a little smirk on his face, fingers toying with the chain around his neck.

"I'll believe you remember it when I'm presented with some concrete evidence," he said lightly. "It's been at least ten years. I didn't even remember your name, so if you can somehow produce that, then my hat's off to you."

Ludwig's blue eyes narrowed, and Gilbert felt like he'd just swatted a hornet's nest. The insects knew they were going to win and that he was going to end up a red, blotchy mess. It was only a matter of time.

Without another word Ludwig pulled on a baker's apron and headed into the back. There came the sound of horrible clanking and a few quiet curses. A full ten minutes passed, but Ludwig finally emerged, tray in hand. He set the two items down in front of Gilbert and then took a seat, the look on his face one of smug satisfaction.

"Orange roll. Mint hot chocolate," he drawled, pointing at the objects in turn. "I remember it because you're the only one with dead enough taste buds to not find the combination of mint following citrus to be completely unbearable."

"You have to force your way past it," Gilbert insisted, his long fingers already scrambling to wrap around the mug so he could sip at the hot chocolate, tossing out a casual thank you in the process. "It's a visceral thing, but you just have to fight eons of evolution that tell you otherwise. Orange and mint is fuckin' delicious an' I won't have some ignoramus like you belittlin' it."

Ludwig gave a little roll of his eyes and dragged the orange roll towards him with one finger, batting away Gilbert's hand and ignoring his quiet whining when he tried to steal it back. The blonde slowly picked the roll apart, eating only the outer layer of pastry and leaving the gooier, sweeter inner part for Gilbert. It was either adorable and touching or pure coincidence.

"So what are you studying at uni, then?" Gilbert asked, forcing conversation so he wouldn't have to think about whether or not Ludwig was kind or simply absentminded.

"Engineering," Ludwig replied. When Gilbert waited for more than a one-word response and got nothing for his efforts, he stole the rest of the orange roll, speaking around his mouthful just to irritate the younger man who seemed like a stickler for table manners.

The flinch said he was right.

"What kinda' engineerin'?" Gilbert pressed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Ludwig made a pained noise and quickly grabbed a napkin, pressing it against the little smear of marmalade.

"You are the most disgusting being we've ever had in here," he muttered, and Gilbert absently noted that his ears were red. "Why I bothered –

December 20th, 1917.

Ludwig spat onto a handkerchief and polished the bit of metal in his hand. A ring. Not the one from before that he'd wanted. It had been found in the dirt and they'd cast lots over it. Lieutenant Beilschmidt had encouraged him to play at the last minute, to cries of blatant favoritism. The teasing turned nasty when Ludwig had won, but the lieutenant had forced him to take the prize regardless. Which meant that in the pitch black of the canteen, Ludwig sat alone with a lantern, a handkerchief, and the ring. Wasting water would have been a crime. But there were some symbols there – Cyrillic, maybe – that he was struggling to read, and spit cleaning would have to do.

A few of the other soldiers came and went, casting him dirty looks that he did his best to ignore. What did they want with it anyway. A war prize. To sell to whom. The gold was worth a few marks at best, provided a buyer could even be found.

Ludwig peered at the band and after a careful bit of deliberation wrote down the next letter.

He heard the lieutenant's boots a moment before a lithe body pressed against his own, leaning in close to peer curiously at the thing. The lieutenant had poor eyesight. Glasses destroyed, shipment delayed. It was why he always leaned in so close when they sat together or held watch together or walked together anywhere at any time.

With a little snort the older man suddenly pulled away, a disappointed look on his face.

"It says 'love,'" he translated, propping his elbows on the table and blowing out a little puff of air. "How trite."

"Was there an un-trite option, sir?" Ludwig asked dryly, resting the ring on the table and crumpling up his notes. So much for scholarly pursuit. Not even a name.

The lieutenant gave a little shrug of his shoulders, his top half slowly coming to rest atop the table in a boneless heap.

"Something of value, perhaps. Information. You can't trace a sentiment back to an owner."

Ludwig raised an eyebrow and gave the lieutenant a curious look.

"You'd want to…"

"To track them down?" Lieutenant Gilbert laughed and turned to quirk Ludwig a little half-smile. "Not especially. But I suppose…"

His voice became a bit wistful.

"It would be nice, wouldn't it. Well not nice, but gratifying, I suppose. To march into a village the enemy and hear a woman cry. To be able to present her with proof, some scrap of humanity as an equalizer. To force her to regard us not as the men that killed but the men that cared enough to keep a little token just for her." He laughed. "We make everything so personal. So significant for us alone when happenstance could not care less about our individuality. Isn't it funny…"

Ludwig nodded slowly. He didn't see the humor, but Gilbert's expression was tense and they shared a name. Best to act. To humor him for the lack of it.

He turned the ring over in his large fingers, taking in the simple design and the lone jewel set into the gold.

"I've never been good with lost objects," he suddenly confessed, his voice quiet at the new, unbroached topic. Next to him, the lieutenant stretched out, languid cat in an invisible sunbeam.

"How do you mean?"

Ludwig tried to slide the ring on his finger, but when it didn't fit he shyly reached out to set it atop the lieutenant's hand, unsure if it would be welcome.

"Don't you feel sorry for them, in a way?" he said absently, as though anthropomorphizing inanimate objects was something soldiers did on a daily basis. "To be so far away from their owners, no hope of returning, no way to move on their own. If it hadn't been found it would be lost in the dirt somewhere. Trodden deeper and deeper into the ground to rust and… and I don't know. It makes me anxious to think how many lost things we tread on every day. Or overlook sitting on the side of the road and we can't hear them crying…"

He flushed slightly, embarrassed at his outburst. More still when Lieutenant Beilschmidt pushed himself up and fixed him with a curious look.

"Bit of a romantic, aren't you," he said slowly, the ring still cupped in his palm. "Or an author. One of those creative types that ends up killed by their own thoughts. It's just a hunk of metal. You caved a man's head in with your rifle last night and you're feeling sorry for a ring."

"I know," Ludwig said, a bit too sharply, embarrassment making his words too aggressive for his rank. "Sir. I know that. Please, just… forget I said anything."

The lieutenant fell silent, long, spindly fingers turning over the ring before he carefully slipped it on. It fit on his middle finger, and he flexed his hands, admiring it for a moment in the dim light of the lantern. The gold sparkled and the gem glinted and Ludwig thought of dragons in the fairy books who lusted after gold. Horded it until it drowned them as a cautionary tale for peasants who could never even afford a single necklace.

"You're a very strange one, Private Beilschmidt," the lieutenant suddenly said, moving in a bit closer to show Ludwig the ring. "But here, it has a new owner now, if you don't mind. I'm assuming you don't considering how reluctant you were to accept it in the first place. And this way it'll have a place to come back to. Better than being unclaimed?"

Ludwig's stomach churned at the close proximity, and he turned away from the golden ring on the man's finger. He often wondered, at times when his mind was too exhausted to live in reality, of the lieutenant's story. The man was reticent in only that, his past. Orphan. Nothing more was known.

"Silver would suit you better," he finally muttered. "But it will do, I suppose. As a temporary measure. Sir."

"Always with the sir," the lieutenant said in amusement. "I told you when we're alone that's not –

December 20th, 1947.

He'd burned a hole in his palm.

It had been an accident. Of course. The flame hugged the match too tightly for him to see, and in frustration he gently shook it. His fingers were too weak to hold on, and as the match fell he thought of leather gloves and gold and other things he shouldn't know about. Like Kant. How did he know Kant, and not just his writing but his voice, his sneer, his tight-lipped smile, the coffee he drank.

And he knew other men too, and women. Names that seemed important to him, that stuck out in a marquee in his head, but he didn't know how. Their dress was different from one another, their speech, their mannerisms, their fields; they had nothing in common other than that they had, at one point, simply been.

The match had burned him, but in the last little puff of blue he heard the voice again. It spoke a name, an unimportant one with no marquee, but the devotion in the two syllables was enough to make the sea quiet.

He had to wait for nightfall, fitful rest making the time nearly unbearable. His shelter had collapsed, snow everywhere, and he'd hidden himself more among the rocks. There was no place else to go. In a fit of impulse he'd climbed to the highest point, stared at the sea in all directions, and felt the first nudge of fear. The water was wild and unfettered and every day it drew in close, salt breath crusting his hair, his eyelashes, until it was all he could taste.

And he was alone.

He counted the matches again. Nine left. He'd rationed even more. Afraid that in his final breaths he'd be wanting for companionship. Even a little blue flame, a quiet voice. No one should die a dog's death alone in the shed.

He closed his eyes, sleeping or losing consciousness, he wasn't sure. When he opened them the moon shone above, illuminating the snow-covered ground enough to make his eyes hurt. They adjusted, and he ran his fingers over the match in his palm, warring with remonstrations and pleas until flint was struck and the light returned.

The little flame danced happily in the gentle night air, and he let out a slow breath, eyes falling to half-lids as he watched it move.

Gilbert.

It came quicker each time, the voice, and out of the corner of his eye he could make out a shape, humanoid and colossal and somehow only slightly taller than him if he could still stand. When he turned his head it faded slightly, but if it remained in the peripheral, he could see.

The God theory loomed strong in the one half. Hallucination was also putting up a good fight.

The figure seemed intent on him, which lent credence to neither theory in particular. It stared at him with flame eyes, the bright blue eating away the little match.

Where are you

Where have they put you now

I woke up and found you gone our broken house empty save the strangers

You promised me

Next time I wouldn't have to be alone I wouldn't have to suffer this alone these stupid years

He blinked in surprise and glanced around the island. Alone. Shouldn't that be his crying, then? It was all he knew. And the words were angry but the voice was brokenly sad, a forgotten thing. Abandoned, and he longed to reach out to the mirage, to touch it, offer comfort and solace.

He licked his split and bleeding lips and spoke. His voice was nearly dead from salt and cold.

"I'm. Lost."

The match flickered.

Lost

What do you mean

Where are—

December 21st, 2027.

It was three in the morning by the time Gilbert left the bakery. Bakery slash Ludwig's residence. His parents were snoring so loudly they could be heard downstairs, and after a few halfhearted apologies for the noise (which Gilbert continued to pretend was driving him insane until Ludwig finally caught on), they ended up in the back room, Ludwig up to his elbows in flour and baking powder, getting things ready for the next morning. That was the system, apparently. Ludwig readied things as he was a "night owl" (the slightly antiquated term made Gilbert roll his eyes fondly). Then he passed out around four, his parents got up at five, and the bakery opened at six. It was a good way to manage things, although Ludwig's absence the past decade explained the bakery's later-than-usual operating times.

When it hit midnight, Ludwig had asked him if he was sure he didn't mind staying. Gilbert had told him no, he didn't, and proceeded to learn how to accidentally kill yeast in five thousand new and exciting ways. By the time the flour settled and the good-natured bickering had lost a bit of its good-naturedness, the clock read three.

Ludwig had kicked him out immediately, although a moment later he had stuck his head outside asking if he needed to be walked home. The younger man was so serious it nearly made Gilbert collapse in a snowdrift in a dramatic display just to match the mood. It took three "no"s before Ludwig finally retreated back inside. Like a turtle going into its shell, all squinty-eyed and suspicious.

Gilbert barely remembered the walk home. The dry snow under his boots crunched with ice and his phone wouldn't stop buzzing in his pocket, breaking the silence of the trees and the snow and the inquisitive wind. He'd texted his mother five times ensuring her he was still alive and no, not at a bar, at the bakery, he was at the bakery because he felt like it, because yes Ludwig, his name was Ludwig, did in fact want him there, would she stop he was still alive, he would continue to be alive until the moment he wasn't and not a minute before and he would text her when he left for home.

Speaking of which.

Gilbert flipped open his phone (he had a tendency to break things over fifty dollars just by looking at them so his phone was a prehistoric contraption most people rolled their eyes at) and sent off a quick text. The reply was almost immediate, fast enough that he didn't need to even read it.

The warm glow of his house through the trees soon filled his vision, and he moved on autopilot. Inside, boots and coat off in the wet room, socks left somewhere between there and the bathroom. Shower where his feet and hands and face burned, boxers, flannels, sweater, bed.

Gilbert lay completely still, staring up at the ceiling, until suddenly it all grew too much and he had to press his hands over his eyes and roll around on the bed in silent agony.

Fuck.

Fucking _fuck _just over twenty-four hours, this was going to be last June all over again only this time he was even stupider because he had experience to work from, he knew where this was going but he was too fucking stupid to take his foot off the accelerator.

His phone buzzed and without thinking he reached for it, ready to tell his mother that he knew she'd heard him getting into the shower that he was obviously alive and not a robber why the fuck would a robber bother taking a shower.

His thumb froze on the reply button.

/Thanks for your help. If you weren't so terrible at it with no hope of improving you'd make a wonderful baker./

Gilbert stared at the text, his hand slowly moving up to cover his mouth.

How the hell did he have his number.

With a little jerk he closed the phone and flung it across the room, staring at it as though it were some sort of pestiferous insect. Metamorphosis. Wasn't that that book with the guy and the bug and the turning into whatever. Pestiferous, no other reason that word should come to mind other than literature classes from ages ago filling in the little spots in his brain that had died from shock.

He actually squeaked when the phone buzzed again, and without thinking he hurried out of bed and picked the thing up again, holding it between his forefinger and thumb. He flicked it open and sat down on the stack of pillows by the wall (his mother's obsession with needlework was getting out of control) and quickly read the text, his fingers fiddling nervously with the necklace ring.

/And because I know you're going to ask next. My mother texted your mother wanting to set up a play date. Her exact words. From there it was a matter of time before your number landed in my phone. Apparently your mother thinks you're in need of friends. You should learn to lie to her like I do to mine about these things. It makes life so much simpler./

Gilbert bit his lip to keep from laughing, not wanting to wake the entire household. He folded his legs under him and hunched over his phone, going back and meticulously correcting any spelling or grammar errors as he replied.

/Why the hell are you typing so much? I thought your generation was supposed to speak only in lols and inscrutable emoticons./

He worried his lip for a bit, debating word choice and order before he recognized the beginnings of obsession and quickly hit send. He barely had to wait ten seconds for a reply.

/The fuck is an emoticon./

Gilbert had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. He fell back against the pillows, holding his phone close to his face so he could still read it without his contacts in.

/Those face things. Japan makes them or something. I don't know what the hell half of them are trying to illustrate but considering the demographic of people who utilize them my guess is mostly 'sadness.' Seriously though, when the hell did you meet my mother?/

/That's rich, coming from a video game nerd. And she was in the bakery the other day. You do realize, I trust, that I've been back for a while and thus know far more about you than you do me. I hope this information gap is unsettling. You deserve it after killing half the world's yeast supply./

/They're too delicate it's not my fault! And god what the hell has she been saying?/

/Good things. Mostly. She is not fond of your career, I can tell you that much for certain./

There was a pause, and then a few seconds later another text.

/But most of her descriptions were glowing. I don't know if she was purposefully painting you as an Adonis in a scrawny nerd suit or if it was inadvertent but if you're ever in need of a publicist you should hire your mother. She's a good saleswoman./

Gilbert read the text a few times, not sure whether to feel embarrassed, elated, furious, or incredibly, incredibly nervous. The butterfly massacre kind of nervous.

While he was debating the phone buzzed again, two times in quick succession, and he hastened to read the messages.

/Sorry, that probably sounded a bit wired and stalker eesh I didn't mondr/

/Mean. It to be. Sorry. Fat fingers and ridiculously tiny gadgets don't mix. Sorry if that made you uncomfortable. I'm saying sorry a lot./

/It didn't!/

"God it didn't, don't recant being fuckin' adorable," Gilbert muttered, typing up a reply as quickly as he could.

/It didn't! I'm just kind of terrified wondering what the hell else she's been espousing. She's incredibly crafty and meddlesome and mettlesome. Both kinds. It's a terrifying mixture are you positive you want to involve yourself with this./

The response came a split second later.

/Yes./

Gilbert stared at the word and then slowly closed his phone, pressing it against his forehead as he fought to hide a stupidly elated smile from no one at all.

"Fuck," he whispered quietly, his hand tightening on the phone. "Stop being so charmin' you goddamn asshole."

The phone buzzed, and after a moment he flipped it open again.

/So I hear you had a hand in localizing those games about lawyers or whatever. Tell me about those. If you don't mind./

Gilbert checked the time – four forty-five in the morning – and then started typing back.

/One of the hardest projects of my life, are you sure you want to get into this? The nuances of pun translating are many and they are rife with tears and recrimina—

December 21st, 1917.

The sun was out.

For the first time in weeks its rays pierced through the cloud veil, melting the snow just enough to freeze it into ice at night. As they walked it filled their footprints, preserving the evidence of their former existence in transient water.

With the day came the mud, seeping into boots and supplies and food until all they could taste was mud. A new hole in the ground, a new canteen, new orders.

The men were weary. Their feet were caked in ice and filth and their stomachs were empty. Supplying an army took resources their leaders no longer could bear to part with.

They were starving.

They huddled together in the earth, too exhausted for conversation, anything more than a grunt or a death rattle. Hostilities forgotten, even Ludwig was accepted into the fold. They cleaned their guns, drank what water they could, and waited for orders.

The lieutenant had left.

Before he left he'd been acting strangely, hands pressed to his head and muttering of voices. He clung to Ludwig's side, snapping at anyone who tried to approach and ruthless in his bellicose ministrations. He kept glancing to the east, his hands twitching and anxiety clear on his face, enough to make the other men nervous. He was a pacing, frantic mess, and suddenly he'd said he had to leave, and everything changed. He was calm. Distracted, but calm.

Not of his own volition, he promised, and not for long. He had to go, medical tents in need of resupplying, reporting to the brass. A casually dropped story every time someone asked. Swore to return later, not even twenty-four hours, he'd promised, and then he was gone. Slipping east out of the trenches when everyone was sleeping, over the land they'd nearly died to claim.

His footprints were all that had given him away. Frozen into the ground. The men had combed the area behind the trench, looking for him. For some telegraph he might have dropped, some message to explain the sudden insanity, the departure.

Nothing had surfaced.

The men returned to their warren, devastated and confused.

Ludwig returned with them, accepting the warmth their presence bought even as the anger and betrayal settled in. He pressed his hands over his ears to keep out the cold, the skin burning and stinging as circulation returned. He kept his eyes fixed on the dirt floor, missing the strident voice that normally sounded through the trenches during down time, furious at the incompetence of his fellow men, furious at the man himself for leaving like a snake in the middle of the night.

The lieutenant was their soul. Those hadn't even been Ludwig's words; another private had spoken up after one of the others had burst forth with calumny. He was their heart, his stupid bravery their jealousy and admiration and now he was gone. Another voice chimed in. For less than a day, he'd promised, but what could be accomplished in that time that wouldn't be a lie. A double agent deal, he'd been able to read Cyrillic so easily, he read 'love' on the ring with just a little glance, they'd all heard the story of his ring, how had he known, could he speak it, did he understand how they thought, those mad revolutionaries the insanity of red that murdered children in forests.

And the whispers grew.

A few of the younger men were huddled in a corner, wiping their wet faces before they froze. A grim loneliness had taken hold of them, and Ludwig thought of his home in a different North. His books by the fire. His dogs. Were they being cared for? Had the tree in the front yard finally fallen? He had no mother or father to worry about, no one waiting for him that walked on two legs.

One of the men was sobbing, by himself on the other side of the trench. Still moments, the times you didn't actively fear for your life, were when the horrors took you. Ludwig thought the lieutenant might have known that. It was why he was always moving, always talking, always harshly cheerful to an obnoxious fault, but whether the men hated him or adored him that fullness of emotion ensured no room for anything else.

They would succumb without him, traitor or no. The moment the sun fell.

Ludwig lifted his head to stare up at the darkening sky. He'd taken the man's name when it had been offered and hadn't paid anything for it. It felt wrong, somehow. Like he didn't deserve it. Hadn't proved himself worthy.

With an impulse that frightened him he pushed himself up and hauled himself out of the trench. Broken wire supports and pieces of demolished buildings lay scattered around the field. He gathered up what he could and brought it back, dumping it in the middle of their little hovel. He struck a flint and began coaxing the sparks to stay and grow.

"H-Hey… hey you shouldn't – they said no fire," one of the other men said weakly, sitting up a bit more.

"They said no fire because it would attract the others, but quite frankly I would rather be shot than freeze to death," Ludwig said bluntly, warming his hands by the little embers. "They said no fire because others would come, but those others might have food, we might be taken prisoner somewhere, given something to eat and then shot but at least we won't die like rats in a hole."

"That's… that's insurrection," the first soldier said, his voice hoarse. "That's –"

"For fuck's sake, shut up," one of the other men muttered, shoving his way past the first man to sit by the growing fire as well. He tugged off his gloves with a little hiss of pain and closed his eyes.

One by one the others came, pressing in close, stretching out hands and feet towards the small bit of salvation. More wood was gathered, and the fire spread, reaching its tendrils up towards the darkening sky. They sat in silence, a few whimpers and groans breaking it occasionally, but nothing else.

Until suddenly another one spoke.

"Are you and the lieutenant… are you really brothers? He calls you Private Beilschmidt, so…"

Ludwig looked around in confusion before realizing he was being addressed. He faltered, unsure of how to respond. The lieutenant had said they were. He'd held his hands and leaned in close and spoken with such forceful sincerity it was difficult to go against his words.

Finally Ludwig nodded slowly, the admission making him feel a bit chilled again.

"I suppose we are," he said quietly.

"Estranged?"

"You two look nothin' alike."

"How come you're not fuckin' crazy, then?"

"What's he like, really? The lieutenant? He always seems so pensive when we're walking."

All other questioners fell silent and fixed their attention on Ludwig, waiting for an answer to the last. Ludwig rubbed his hands together, the skin prickling again as it slowly healed. His lips quirked up into a little smile, and he raised his head slightly to stare at the curious eyes trained on him. Expectant.

He let out a little breath. This was what he did. He told the stories of others, fictional or fleshed. There was still ink under his fingers somewhere, he knew, and his head was filled with a hundred pages of notes, waiting to be transferred to a more sharable medium.

He closed his eyes, flicking through the pages in his head, before he settled on one. A picture of the lieutenant, laughing. Not the man he'd been of the past day. Something more human than a bundle of impulses and orders.

"He… he has this game he plays when we're marching called 'Ships Sailsalot,'" he slowly began, the smile on his face growing as he lost himself in the pages. "It's incredibly asinine but you pretend you're… well, you pretend you're a ship, and you calculate how much damage you could take before you start to sink. You take damage when your path crosses with a rock or – I don't know the rules exactly. Now, once you start to sink, you have to find someone else to be the lighthouse, and–

December 21st, 1947.

He studied the head of the match. He had to hold it close to his eyes; he thought that meant 'bad eyesight' which sounded like an evolutionary disaster he hadn't asked for.

The surface was smooth and waxy and it tasted terrible. Not that he would eat a full match. Waste of a good warmth.

The sun was high overhead. The moment its far edge touched the tip of the second branch on the fifth farthest tree, he struck it.

The flame was slow to grow, but he watched it with an odd feeling of cupidity. The little flame danced, and a split second later the figure appeared.

It had color this time, its outline still hazy and indistinct, but it wandered further into his vision, pacing back and forth.

Gilbert

Gilbert God dammit, answer me

Am I going mad I heard your voice I know it was you

No one else it can't be something as trite as insanity

He slowly leaned to the side, resting against a frozen rock, a little smile on his face. The voice was panicked, but even so its timbre was a warm blanket, its color a welcome reprieve.

He listened to the voice have a little psychotic meltdown and then did his best to reply.

"I'm here."

The scratchy syllables made the voice stop completely for a split second before it started babbling again, the panic still there but frustration and relief present as well.

Here Gilbert where the hell is here

I need something concrete

Are you okay

Are you dying do you know can you tell

He slowly picked himself up and gave his little island another once-over to ensure he hadn't missed anything the other eight million times he'd done that, and then sat back down again, still clutching the match.

"'Here' is an island," he said slowly. It hurt to speak. It hurt to do everything, but he didn't want to come off as whiny. "It's cold. I think it's winter, which is a genius observation."

It took him a moment to identify the sound, and when he did he blinked in surprise.

"Why are you laughing?"

Because you're funny

You've always been so stupidly funny at the most inopportune times

I think that's what's gotten us into this mess in the first place

I hope

What is your island like

"It's. Rocky?" he said, unsure how else to describe it.

Tropical

"No. The opposite."

Not tropical

"Yes."

The voice was silent for a bit, but he knew it wasn't gone.

I have no idea why you're on an island

That's never happened before during these stupid excursions into humanity

They might have done something or

I don't know

Maybe it's a purgatory metaphor

Regardless

Let's just say I'm not happy

The voice sounded like harm. Possibly like murder.

"I suppose," he said, not knowing how else to respond.

The voice was quiet for a bit longer and then said softly

You don't know who I am

Do you

He closed his eyes, exhaustion making him feel sick to his stomach.

"Yes I do. You're Phosphorous."

I'm

What

Gilbert no that's an element

Oh God you are dying aren't you

Please tell me where you are I need to find you

You're always the one who finds me I don't know what I'm doing

I need help

If you make a psychiatrist joke right now I will never forgive you

"Yes, that's nice," he said quietly, starting to drift off "What's your name?"

The blue slowly ate through what little was left of the match wood.

You don't

Even know that

God you aren't going to make it in time

It's Lu—

December 22nd, 2027.

They were so obvious.

They were so fucking obvious it was amazing the entire village wasn't either stoning them or putting up little banners all around the square to inform passersby.

At least that was how it felt every time Ludwig did that thing with his eyebrows that let Gilbert know he was on the verge of laughing but didn't want to give the person cracking the joke the satisfaction of an actual noise or every time he brought him hot chocolate and conveniently forgot it for everyone else, three or four times throughout the afternoon, or leaned down to whisper in his ear some sardonic comment and refused to answer the younger boys when they whined asking him what he'd said.

No one else seemed to find it strange.

Gilbert had nearly fallen off his ladder exactly seven times.

They were putting the lights up. The storms had abated enough for it to be feasible, and Gilbert, despite other distractions, was actually looking forward to seeing everything come together. Every year they lit the tree the entire week before Christmas, but this year they were incredibly late. The other villagers were getting restless and had even started heckling them. Not that the formal tree committee paid them any mind, but it was starting to get on Gilbert's nerves. And Ludwig's too if the way he glared at anyone not affiliated with the tree was any indication.

Gilbert moved down a couple rungs on the ladder to take a strand of lights, scrambling back up the moment Ludwig handed them to him. The blonde moved to steady the ladder again, and Gilbert got to work. He could feel the younger man's gaze on him (and it was difficult to think about what, exactly, other than his ass, the baker's son could be staring at), and practically heard the smirk in his voice.

"You're practically a squirrel, aren't you. Did you ever read those books when you were a kid about the medieval rodents that killed each other."

"Medieval rodents. No it isn't ringing a bell," Gilbert deadpanned, and felt the ladder shake slightly as Ludwig silently laughed.

"What did you read, then – moving – when you were a kid?" Ludwig asked, easily lifting up the ladder with Gilbert clinging to it and carrying it a few feet before setting it down. He was the only one strong enough to, and every time he did some of the fifteen-year-olds would grumble and complain that Ludwig was just a pathetic show-off. Ludwig would just roll his eyes and ignore them, and Gilbert threw things at them. It was a very mature situation all around.

Gilbert waited until the ladder settled again before pushing himself into the tree once more to put the lights where they belonged.

"Encyclopedias, mostly," he said, in response to Ludwig's earlier question. "A lot of reference books. The Physicians' Desk Reference was a favorite. I liked looking at all the pictures of the nervous system."

"Morbid little child. No wonder we weren't friends," Ludwig said, and Gilbert could feel the younger man resting his chin on one of the ladder rungs. Somehow.

"We weren't friends because you were something ridiculous like seven years younger than me and you know how little kids are. Even one year is a terrible age difference that can't be tolerated," Gilbert said, tilting his head to peer down at Ludwig with one eyebrow raised.

He was met with a curious little smirk.

"And seven years now isn't much of a difference?"

Gilbert pursed his lips and then got back to work before Ludwig teased him for blushing.

"Not when one of the people already acts like they're a bitter seventy-year-old."

"Seventy isn't that old anymore, you know. Not with the modern marvels of today's science."

Ludwig pitched his voice like a fifty's infomercial. It made Gilbert laugh and he had to cling to the ladder again. He shoved the last bundle of lights in the tree and called out, "Down!" before quickly descending the ladder, landing nimbly next to Ludwig. He pushed his way past the younger man, unsurprised when he quietly followed like a blonde shadow wrapped in too many layers of coat.

"That's the highest strand we have to do. The rest is done with the cherry picker," he said happily, pouring himself a glass of cider and then, after a bit of exaggerated thought, poured one for Ludwig as well. The blonde accepted it with a nod of thanks, and the two turned to survey the tree.

Ludwig sipped at his cider.

"It looks like shit."

Gilbert hit him in the back of the head as hard as he could and said indignantly, "It so does not you fuckin' brat. Just wait 'til you see it lit."

"I can't believe we're wasting the town's resources on something that's only going to be up for a few days," Ludwig continued, recovering wordlessly after the hit. "Aren't we in an economic crisis? And we rented a piece of heavy machinery just to put up lights and a star. It just seems like –"

"Do you actually like anythin' or is your whole existence centered around complainin'?" Gilbert suddenly snapped, Ludwig's hypercritical attitude finally getting to him a bit. He liked the guy. Didn't mean he was flawless.

Ludwig actually looked surprised. It was the most genuine expression Gilbert had seen from him, and a part of him relished in it, hurt though it was.

The two fell silent, staring at each other for a long moment before Ludwig turned back to the tree, tilting his head to the side as he looked at it again.

"I like that you like it so much," he finally said, tugging his hat down over his red, wind-nipped ears a bit more. "Never seen a grown man that eager to shove himself into a sap-covered monstrosity just to hang a bunch of twinkle lights. Even if the end product looks ridiculous the creation of it is hard to hate when you're in such enthusiastic company."

Gilbert blinked in surprise, trying not to let it show on his face.

"…So if I said I hated the tree, you'd—"

"Probably topple it."

"…And if I said it was my favorite thing ever, you'd—"

"Hold a ladder for you so you can put more lights on it."

Ludwig glanced down at Gilbert, a little smirk on his face.

"I'm not about to build a shrine to a conifer, Gilbert, please."

Gilbert ducked his head to bury his nose in his scarf, too flustered to figure out what to say.

"It should be illegal for you to be so sappy – no don't don't you fuckin' dare—"

"Tree joke."

"_God dammit!_"

Gilbert burst out laughing and a moment later Ludwig's quiet chuckle mingled with the raspy noise. He moved a bit closer to Gilbert, and Gilbert let him, forcing himself to act nonchalant when their hands brushed.

"You couldn't even come up with a real joke," he complained, bumping his shoulder against Ludwig.

"Clearly expending the energy to be clever wasn't needed. You laughed anyway, thereby accomplishing the main goal of puns in the first place," Ludwig said, his lips curling into that stupidly handsome smirk that Gilbert found more and more endearing every time. "Charming the witless and slash or residents over the age of eighty who miss the talkies on the radio."

"Goodness, Ludwig, why are you puttin' so much effort towards enticin' senior citizens?" Gilbert drawled, draining his cider and holding out his hand for Ludwig's mug to take back to the truck. "Some latent fetish I should know about before this friendship progresses any further?"

"Hardly a fetish," Ludwig said lightly, setting his cup in Gilbert's hand before leaning down to murmur quietly in his ear.

"I just seem to have a thing for men with silvery hair. I'm hoping the charm is transferable to a significantly younger generation."

Gilbert furrowed his brow as he puzzled that over, his eyes widening as it slowly dawned. He glanced up, casting Ludwig a questioning look. The younger man merely smiled and shrugged his broad shoulders, but there was a slightly embarrassed look on his face.

Before either of them could speak, one of the older men in the crew called Ludwig over.

"Later," Ludwig said quietly, giving Gilbert one last little quirk of his lips before he turned and jogged over towards the rest of the group.

Gilbert stood in the little snow-drift, the empty mugs clutched against his chest as he fought to stay calm. He watched Ludwig climb the little rungs up the cherry picker, hanging on with one hand as he helped pass the strands of lights up towards the man in the basket.

Silvery hair.

He reached up to rub a few strands of his hair in between his fingers, a heavy blush slowly stealing over his cheeks.

Well.

"Suave motherfuc—

December 22nd, 1917.

The cat had been following them for a few hours.

There wasn't any food to spare, so there was no reason it should have still been trailing them. But every time Ludwig glanced behind his shoulder the little white speck was there. Picking its way over perfect squares of church stones. Every so often it would let out a little mewling noise, and some of the men would clutch at their hearts and some would roll their eyes and plug their ears and some would start talking about their own pets, their dogs, their cats, and each little home they painted a picture of was its own little microcosm competing for perfection.

Ludwig was a dog person; this was well known as the only pictures he carried with him were of his dogs ("sick fuck" he'd been called by some and "lucky asshole" by others), so naturally when they stopped to rest and the cat clung to his leg with its vicious little claws he became the butt of every joke for the rest of the afternoon. He did his best to pretend that the cat wasn't there while walking around the little camp, grimacing only slightly when its claws dug into his skin and ignoring its pathetic little cries.

You could see its ribs through its threadbare white fur. It was missing an eye. It was the ugliest creature Ludwig had ever seen and an hour into the claws Ludwig went behind what used to be a hospital and broke down crying.

The cat struggled to crawl into his arms, still mewling pathetically.

Ludwig wiped his eyes and rested his head in his hands, unable to bear looking at the animal.

"I don't have any food for you," he said hoarsely, squeezing his eyes shut.

The cat nuzzled his hand, grabbing at his fingers with its padded feet.

Ludwig's hand twitched slightly, but in a moment he was petting the soft fur, combing out the mats as best he could. No fleas. Somehow there were none but Ludwig would have pet the cat anyway because it was small and helpless and clearly a metaphor for the innocents that had once occupied this little area. The cat didn't know that he was an Evil German; it was just a dumb animal showing affection in the hopes of begging food that didn't exist.

Ludwig fished out his canteen and wet his handkerchief. He carefully cleaned the cat's fur, his lips twitching up into an empty smile as the animal pushed its head into the touch. The dirt came away cleanly in most places, and he took a knife to the clumps that refused to budge.

There wasn't much he could do about the missing eye. The wound didn't smell infected. It looked old, dead skin surrounding the empty socket. Ludwig trimmed what he could and then put his pocket-knife away.

The cat sat patiently, its one blue eye fixated on his face.

It meowed again, and Ludwig closed his eyes.

"You're going to die, cat," he said quietly, letting out a tired laugh. "Animals always die in war stories, and I don't have any food for you. You're going to die because God needs a metaphor and you happen to be an easy motif."

The cat nuzzled Ludwig's hand again. It meowed.

When they started walking again, there was a cat in Ludwig's shirt, next to his notebook. It had one eye and a stale piece of hardtack in its mouth that it did its best to gnaw on. Its little heart beat, and Ludwig thought about throwing it into the river as they forded. Death by drowning was better than death by starvation. Probably. Faster, at least. Several of the other men were looking at the water with utter longing. But on the other side of the water was a fire in the distance and bursting through the flames came the sound of a familiar laugh.

Ludwig's eyes widened, his chest tightening with claws of a different sort.

Without thinking he took off through the shallow river, pressing a hand against the cat tucked in his uniform to keep it from bouncing out and losing its other eye. He stumbled up the embankment, the voice in his ear and the fire in his vision.

And there he was.

Impossibly returned, looking relaxed and happy, and Ludwig could feel a thousand rumors freezing over. He'd returned, just as he said he would, ahead of them somehow but who had time to question the details when utter relief was in sight.

The lieutenant barely had time to stand before Ludwig pulled him into a crushing hug, only relinquishing it slightly when the cat let out a high pitched howl. He heard the other soldiers burst into loud cheering, and the lieutenant nearly deafened him when he yelled at the rest to shut the fuck up where did they think they were.

There was a fleeting moment, he thought he might have only imagined it, when the lieutenant's hand rested on his back, long fingers pressing against skin as though the wool weren't there, his touch like ice in summer, a blessed reprieve from the stench and swelter and death in little hermetic rooms.

And then the lieutenant turned from him to greet the others. He answered the questions thrown at him, seemed mostly amused, a little angry when they confessed they thought him a spy. Explained about the medical tents, the supplies, his story flowing much smoother this time and the new bandages and aspirin in his pockets lending credence.

Ludwig rested his hand against the cat's head, ignoring the sandpaper tongue. He sat down next to the fire and let the animal out of his shirt. It stuck close to his side, far more loyal than felines normally were, weaving through his legs and purring like mad.

The rest of the camp got settled soon enough, and the novelty that was their returned leader was gone and most of their fears put to rest. They curled up in little cocoons around the fire, indistinguishable in the dim light. The lieutenant walked among them with a lantern, his steps pitter-patter light against the frozen soil.

Ludwig closed his eyes for just a moment, and when he opened them the lieutenant was pressed up against his side, the cat curled up in his lap. He felt the man breathe and listened to his gravelly voice as he cooed to the animal, letting its claws dig into his wrist and hug his hand so tightly, like a small child in the clutches of a nightmare.

"I suppose I'm not that special, then," Ludwig murmured, closing his eyes again. He felt the lieutenant chuckle. "To you or the feline. Why didn't you warn me?"

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, a look of chagrin on his face.

"Anxiety," he quietly confessed. "It's difficult to focus when my attention is being demanded elsewhere. I didn't want you to worry; I could pull out a thousand excuses, none of which matter because I'm here now. As promised. And I have a theory this animal simply has wonderful taste in men. A cat that knows when it's in rarified company."

"Something you and it have in common, then," Ludwig murmured, too tired to fear gently taunting the older man, too tired even to press the man further for details.

The lieutenant tensed, but just before Ludwig apologized the man laughed again and rested his cheek against Ludwig's hair.

"You've changed considerably since we first talked, Herr Beilschmidt."

"Blame your own influence, Herr Beilschmidt. You're the only thing that's changed in my life."

"Mm. I suppose I should."

Ludwig opened his eyes again. The lieutenant's hand was outstretched, his thumb idly twisting the ring on his finger. The cat reached out a little paw to bat at the shiny metal.

"You're still wearing it."

"Of course. I wouldn't dare make it ownerless again."

Ludwig smiled very slightly and let his eyes slip shut again.

"You really are worthy of protagonist status," he murmured, slowly drifting off.

The lieutenant laughed again, his too-thin shoulders shaking.

"And you, my dear private, are an absolute riot when you're exhausted. What are you on about?"

"The story…" Ludwig gestured vaguely with a tired arm. "Where… where the cat doesn't die."

"You're the one that took it in, according to the men," the lieutenant pointed out, and Ludwig felt a soft touch to his hair. Careful fingers combing through the strands. Setting them in order. "Wouldn't that make you the protagonist?"

Ludwig just shook his head, his brain full of sleep.

"No," he mumbled. "I'm too boring to be the protagonist. Or the sidekick. I know how these narratives work, I've read them my whole life; there's one written in my head. I'm the nameless one who di—

December 22nd, 1947.

"Rook to C seven."

Gilbert that isn't a valid move

Are you even paying attention

He pursed his lips and lifted his head off the rock, staring at the match person.

"You explained the rules once and expect me to be able to play your little game without having any idea what the pieces even look like."

The person. The Ludwig person, it was so hard to keep that name. The Ludwig person gestured irritably.

I told you

It doesn't matter what they look like

Just how they move

"And how is this supposed to help me?" he asked, resting a hand over his eyes.

Keeping you focused

Optimistic

You're so morose it's unlike you and it's scaring me

Bishop to Queen check

"And check is good," he said, a slightly questioning tone to his voice.

No, Gilbert

Check is bad

It's the second most bad

"Is check plus the worst."

No check plus is not the worst

The match Ludwig person sounded like he was slowly dying of frustration.

The island fell silent for a long while, the gentle crashing of hungry waves the only litany.

He moved his hand away from his eyes and slowly pushed himself up to stare at the match person. He could look at him directly now, but it made him slightly gray around the edges. Hazy with the island and the snow. His features were indistinct, his eyes two little matches of blue in his head, but even through the haze he knew he was beautiful, even by a preset standard he didn't fully understand.

The man's shoulders were hunched and his head was buried in his hands. It was a position of misery. Any animal would know to strike for the throat.

"This is the part where I'm supposed to ask you what's wrong, I think."

The match man lifted his head, golden-light hair spilling into his eyes.

Generally this is where you get very invasive with the personal questions

But even if I explained now

It would be like trying to explain physics to a dog

"I'd like to think I have a slightly bigger capacity for understanding than a dog," he said, catching a few snowflakes in his palm. They didn't melt. "And you only have a minute or so left so even if I don't understand our window will close. Burn, to be more accurate."

The figure shifted, the haze around it growing for a minute before clarity seemed to dawn.

The match

Right

How many do you have left

"Four."

He counted them again.

"Yes, four. They're safe, don't worry. Like your little veins."

What

"They give you presence, they're veins. It's a beautiful metaphor and I know some part of you is literary and appreciates it."

He traced the blue lines in his own arm. Blue like the match heads.

"I have scars over my veins. Do you know how they got there."

The figure let out a little sigh, making the frozen leaves strike against each other like ravens' beaks.

You haven't always been happy

Even humans aren't happy all the time

How do they expect us to be

"Alcohol." He laughed, the noise like the leaves. "I remember what that is. It's warm like you, burns the throat. Brings blood to the surface and flushes cheeks."

The match grunted to confirm the new information, and then he spoke again.

You taught me chess

"What's chess."

The game we were just playing

He hummed softly.

"I don't even remember what the pieces look like."

You didn't even have to look at the board

The match continued as though it hadn't even heard him.

You could rattle off moves and win without ever having paused to think

You had this beautiful gilded set

Made of ivory and onyx and when I was little you scolded me for stealing one of the pieces

A bishop I think

I stole it because you didn't look at the board

And there was a time you didn't look at me and I wondered

I wondered if stealing that little man whose moves you could dictate without even looking

If your orders would somehow start to fall on deaf ears outside of the board

And the men would stop listening to you and you wouldn't have to leave

Or go tell any more of them to die

You were furious

It had been a gift from one of your humans one of them you'd loved and you were so angry at me

"One of my humans," he repeated, watching the last few seconds of flame. "Implying that I am not."

A band must have tightened around the match. Its flames stopped breathing for a moment.

You don't sound surprised

"You're a talking match. Your word doesn't necessarily mean anything."

He stared up at the sky, wondering what color his eyes were. What his human had been.

"I think I remember, though," he said quietly, not noticing when the match snuffed itself out. "I remember loving them. They were so fragile but I was terrified of them. How could they live that much in only eighty years. How could they function at all with the reaper at their throats, they were all so brave. They frightened me so much why…"

His throat constricted and panic seized his frantic human heart.

"Why… why do I remember what their voices sound like when their city fa—


	2. Part Two

**Samsara**

**Two**

December 23rd, 2027

The crows were getting more and more aggressive about their croissant stealing.

Gilbert lobbed a snowball at one of the birds, ignoring its livid cawing. He sat perched atop one of the ladders, eyeing the leftover food. The rest of the crew had left until it was only him, a box of ornaments, leftovers from the bakery, and Ludwig.

The ornaments were almost all on. They were donated by the townspeople, largely made by schoolchildren (and therefore absolutely hideous but with the bonus of being the sort of 'priceless' quality that ensured no one would give a shit if a squirrel stole one).

Gilbert munched on a leftover scone, tilting his head back to stare up into the needles of the tree. Ludwig was affixing some ornaments higher up, abandoning the cherry picker in favor of simply clinging to the branches.

"You're going to fall and you're too fat for me to carry you anywhere," Gilbert said for what felt like the millionth time.

"Calling me fat won't make you feel any better about your own body image, Gilbert, did you learn nothing from 'Mean Girls.'"

Gilbert opened his mouth to lob back something no doubt quippy and brilliant when a thought crossed his mind that made him blanch.

"I just thought that there's no way you should be allowed to make outdated popular culture references but I thought the same thing about my dad just a few days ago," he said anxiously, fiddling with his necklace. "Why are you even watchin' old chick flicks? Please don't tell me that's how you get your rocks off." He heard Ludwig fall still for a moment before resuming his useless little fiddling.

"Should I be disappointed that you don't appear to have a daddy complex? Although I guess the stereotype is having a mother complex, isn't it," the blonde finally said.

A few needles landed in Gilbert's hair and he swiped at them, their little ends poking him mercilessly.

"The stereotype for what?" he asked cautiously, his fingers shredding the rest of the scone. Some rodent somewhere would be happy. Maybe a stoat. Whatever had happened to stoats.

The branches above him rattled a bit more, and Ludwig's confused voice followed.

"I thought – are you pulling my leg?"

"No?" Gilbert said, starting to get a bit irritated with the little back and forth. "And who the hell uses idioms like that anymore."

"Upstanding citizens."

A moment later Ludwig slid down the tree, landing on a branch next to Gilbert. He reached out with one sap covered finger to lightly prod the side of Gilbert's head, and Gilbert scowled, swiping at it.

"Don't poke me when I'm precarious, it isn't fair."

"I thought the sap would make you stick."

Ludwig seemed content to watch him fiddle with the food, but suddenly the baker's son said a bit crossly, "I had to wake up at four to make those, you know. After going to bed at three."

"You're scramblin' around in a tree on one hour of sleep. You deserve to have your baked goods ruined to punish you for a lack of common sense," Gilbert said, sticking out his tongue. His fingers stilled and he slipped the rest of the scone in his pocket. He raised an eyebrow at Ludwig.

"Everythin' set?"

"More or less. It's faster not to use the ladder," Ludwig said, shrugging his broad shoulders.

"Faster when you're fearless, maybe," Gilbert said with a little snort. "You remind me of me when I was young. Before I broke my leg and wised up to gravity and its brethren."

Ludwig laughed quietly and rubbed his running nose.

"I'm a contrary person, I guess," he said, his low voice a bit hesitant. "Things like this don't bother me. The thought of dying by just falling down the stairs doesn't even enter as a possibility. I think most guys my age are like that but there are some things that still give me pause. I guess that's a good way to put it."

Gilbert raised an eyebrow, his lips quirking up into a smirk. He leaned in just a bit, enjoying the way Ludwig moved back. The tree branch creaked alarmingly, and Gilbert reached out to grab some of the needles. As though that would keep the tree from splitting.

"I don't believe it," he said, pushing up his glasses. He'd been too tired for contacts that morning. "You look like a tank could hit you and you'd just pop right back up an' start rippin' it apart with your bare hands, bitchin' about inferior building codes the entire time."

"Thank you?" Ludwig said, raising an eyebrow. He rubbed the back of his neck, and the branch creaked alarmingly. Gilbert frowned just a bit, recognizing the gesture as one he himself did quite often. Strange to see it reflected in something other than the mirror.

"But I wasn't lying. There are a few things that make me anxious. Panzer ripping qualities or no."

Gilbert tilted his head to the side, unsure why, exactly, Ludwig was looking so nervous right then.

"…Is heights one of them?" he guessed, a nervous little chill taking hold of him.

Ludwig snorted and gave Gilbert a bland look.

"No," he said bluntly. "Do you think I would have spent – never mind." He let out a little groan and rubbed his gloves over his face, grimacing at the sap. He spared one last glance at Gilbert and then muttered, "Fuck it."

Gilbert was about to laugh when suddenly Ludwig was leaning forward, the branch bending under his weight and a moment before he realized what was happening the stupid thought crossed his mind that they were fifteen feet off the ground, anyone could see them, they were surrounded by shops, the most populated place in the entire town and Ludwig was about to kiss him.

Ludwig's lips touched his, and Gilbert's hands decided at that moment they no longer wanted to hold onto anything. He jerked backwards with a little gasp of surprise, and abruptly found himself staring up at the darkening sky, his stomach leaping into his throat as he fell. He heard Ludwig curse, thought it was strange that he wasn't doing the same, and then he hit the ground.

He landed in the snow piled around the tree, enough untouched by human feet that it cushioned the blow to the point where he only slightly lost his breath. The ladder wobbled dangerously, starting to tip forward, but Gilbert was too stunned to notice, to think much of anything, really, other than the fact that the baker's son was perhaps not the good little Lutheran boy the family portraits in the shop would imply.

"Fucking – dammit, Gilbert!"

And there was piece of evidence number two. Although the gay kiss really was much more damning.

Ludwig immediately dropped out of the tree, landing without so much as a wince. He shoved the ladder out of the way as it started to fall towards Gilbert. It went flying a few feet across the open space, crashing into one of the statues that spotted the courtyard lawn. The statue wobbled dangerously, and one of its fingers went sailing off into the snow.

Ludwig didn't seem to notice, and came to a halt in front of Gilbert, dropping to his knees. He immediately pressed his hands against Gilbert's back, speaking far faster and far more than Gilbert had ever heard him utter in one breath.

"Gilbert, dammit, what the fuck were you thinking I thought you were afraid of gravity! You don't just let go of a ladder you stupid fuck god you could have died what the hell is wrong with you?!"

Gilbert turned his gaze to fix on Ludwig's face, a shocked expression on his own. He pointed towards the statue and said hoarsely, "You de-fingered the lady."

Ludwig blinked his beautiful blue eyes, confusion making him look years younger.

"What? I—" He followed Gilbert's point, staring at the statue and the defeated ladder.

"…Oh. I should probably care about that, shouldn't I."

Gilbert winced as he sat up completely, clutching his head where it had smacked against a bit of ice. Ludwig's hand immediately rested over his own, sending a bolt of warmth through his skin that made him groan quietly and close his eyes.

"You should," he muttered, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Ludwig's shoulder. "And what the fuck was that."

"You're going to have to be more specific," Ludwig muttered, his fingers pressing a bit more insistently against the back of Gilbert's hand.

"The superhero antics. Includin' the poorly timed kiss an' the whole leapin' out of trees with a single bound."

He felt Ludwig shift, the little palpitations in his heartbeat evidence enough of his discomfort.

"With regards to the jumping, I just wanted to get from point A to you as quickly as possible," Ludwig mumbled. "The ladder wanted to crush you so I got rid of it. There's nothing much more to it."

Gilbert lifted his head, fixing Ludwig with a rather steely glare. That didn't exactly explain why it was necessary to fling the ladder to new velocities ladders had only dreamed of or amputate a statue. And it really didn't explain the thing before, the thing that Gilbert had maybe jerked it to a few nights ago but that when conducted on top of a ladder with no warning and no prior indication was more than a little unsettling with its abruptness.

And that wasn't how it was supposed to be! Where were the Disney fireworks, where were the longing looks, the little touches and Ludwig was supposed to be shy and adorable and instead he was aggressive and too confident which made Gilbert feel cowardly and inadequate and confused because he thought they were on the same page, that it would be Disney and orchestral and instead it just made him fall off a ladder and hit his head.

He felt cheated. A bit. Like they'd done this before and the pattern had been broken this time and it wasn't inherently bad but Gilbert liked tradition. Even when it wasn't one he was consciously familiar with.

"An' the other thing?"

Ludwig cleared his throat and glanced towards the statue.

"I should… go fix that," he muttered, starting to stand up, but Gilbert's hand on his wrist stopped him.

"She'll live," Gilbert said a bit snappishly, pushing himself to his feet. He wobbled a bit and tried not to feel too flustered when Ludwig's hand went to his hip to steady him. Brain contusion. Best go… take care of that.

His mittened hand tightened against Ludwig's, and without another word he headed towards the bar on the square. Dusk had fallen, and as Gilbert dragged the younger man through the mounds of snow, the lights in the trees and strung from city hall lit up. The tree too burst into light, but Gilbert didn't spare it so much as a glance.

"Where—"

"Bar."

"…Do you really think that's best? You might have a concu—"

"Bar."

"…Are you going to respond with that every—"

"Bar."

"How fucking old are you? You're acting like a chi—"

"_Oh my god_ we're goin' t' the fuckin' bar Ludwig just shut up for five seconds!" Gilbert snapped, slipping a bit in the snow as he struggled across the street.

Behind him Ludwig let out a heavy sigh, but the younger man obediently fell silent.

The local bar ("pub" as the owners insisted on calling it, British nomenclature being in vogue at the time of its refurbishment) was decked out in as many Christmas lights as the square itself, the entire frame outlined in little white lights and a wreath covering the lion sign that hung out front.

It was relatively crowded for a Thursday evening, most of the counter and booths taken up. Gilbert ignored the greeting they received, making a beeline for the back of the building.

There was a lone booth in the corner, more in the shadows than the rest, where all the old, moth-eaten animal head trophies were stacked up in grisly little piles on the benches. Gilbert pushed them out of the seat, ignoring the plumes of dust that erupted forth when they landed on the bar floor, and took a seat, gesturing for Ludwig to sit across from him.

Ludwig warily eyed the wolf head staring up at him and gingerly eased himself into the booth. He rested his hands in his lap.

Gilbert shrugged off his coat and scarf and crossed his arms over his chest.

"The animal heads are to make sure you can't run," he said, after it became apparent Ludwig was going to continue staring mutely at the table.

"I'm not going to– …okay," Ludwig mumbled in resignation, the fight leaving him in an instant.

"Good."

Gilbert studied Ludwig's uncomfortable posture for a moment longer and then lightly kicked his shin.

"So. The other thing you didn't talk about yet."

Ludwig slowly raised his head just a bit, blue eyes cautiously fixing on Gilbert's face.

"I… yeah. What about it?" he muttered finally. "I know you were just going to keep dancing around the subject and it was driving me a bit crazy that you seemed dead set on doing nothing but stare at me longingly from –"

"Okay okay, no need to editorialize," Gilbert mumbled, his ears going red. The two fell silent as the bartender brought them their usual orders (simple pints for both of them). The beer remained untouched on the table for a good long while before Ludwig finally took a draught.

"You were, though," he pointed out, speaking mostly into his mug. "No need to feel embarrassed. God knows I was doing the same thing."

"Up until about ten minutes ago I would've called bullshit," Gilbert muttered, ducking his head to hide his confused grin.

The booth squeaked as Ludwig shifted his weight, and a moment later he spoke again, his voice faltering.

"I… I'm sorry, though. I don't really know what came over me," he said quietly. "You looked so nonchalant on top of that ladder, even though you kept swaying and at one point I swear to god you were balancing on one foot on the top rung and I thought you were going to fall but you didn't seem to give a shit, you didn't seem to even know how much danger you were in. You were like a bird that knows it can't really fall, and I hated that about you. You made living look so easy and I suppose I wanted to take that unearthly quality from you. So that's why. Not – not why I did it in general. But why it had to be then. When you looked like you were above everything else."

Gilbert furrowed his brow, struggling to keep up with Ludwig's halting speech.

"…You kissed me because you wanted me to fall."

Ludwig hesitated a fraction of a second and then nodded.

"I think a part of me did," he said quietly. "You looked distant. I didn't want you to get hurt, but I just – this fear took me. That you were never going to be afraid of falling, and I'd be the only one left at the mercy of gravity."

Gilbert blinked in surprise and then burst out laughing, loud enough to make the other patrons glance over their shoulders at them. Ludwig looked startled and then angry, draining the rest of his beer before muttering, "And people wonder why I'm so fucking mordant all the time."

Gilbert shook his head and reached across the table to lightly flick Ludwig's forehead.

"N-No," he wheezed, a huge grin on his face. "It's just – god, Ludwig, it's so fuckin' obvious that you're not afraid of fallin' either. You jumped down out of that tree an' landed like goddamn superman or somethin'. Karate-choppin' the ladder t' boot. You're a fuckin' fearless romantic, you're Prometheus."

"I get my liver eaten repeatedly?" Ludwig asked, rubbing his forehead, a bemused look on his face.

"Just roll with the demigod metaphor."

Ludwig raised an eyebrow, but a little smile stole over his face.

"You're a little crazy."

"You're one to talk. Ludwig the ladder slayer."

"Would you fucking stop with that. I shoved it out of the way, I didn't break it in half with my pinkie."

"That thing went _sailin'_ I swear to god it was practically Styx," Gilbert insisted, banging his fist on the table. "It was beltin' out 'come sail away' right before it crashed into that lady statue."

Ludwig was quick to rest his hand atop Gilbert's, shushing him even as he laughed.

"Your knowledge of 1980s rock n' roll is very charming. Quite timely," he teased.

Gilbert rolled his eyes, a grin still on his face as he turned his hand over, linking his fingers with Ludwig's.

"I don't wanna hear that from a guy that probably works out eight hours a day just t' impress some skinny nerd. What a loser."

Ludwig laughed quietly and leaned across the table a bit more, his blue eyes bright even in the dim light of the bar.

"You mock, but it seems to have worked," he murmured, his thumb lightly rubbing the back of Gilbert's hand.

The little touch was like a bolt of fire across his skin, and after a quick glance towards the bar to make sure everyone was occupied, Gilbert reached across the table to grab Ludwig by the coat, tugging him close enough to press their foreheads together. He ignored the table digging into his gut, his eyes full of blue and his head swimming with Ludwig's smell. Warm bread and the pages of much-loved books. Pine from the mountains. The clean smell of fresh snow.

He felt about a thousand years old in that instant. The bar around him a mountain field he could remember, the coat in his hand one of fur and sinew and Ludwig still there, his smell, the smell of civilization, of bread and the coppery sting of blood and iron. Their heads pressed together, sharing a thought, fleeting ticks of a clock hand where every blue vein in their bodies constricted at once.

"We can't have sex on the table," Ludwig said quietly, his voice suddenly breaking the spell.

Gilbert's stomach lurched, and with a soft, "They make bleach for a reason," he leaned across the table, tugging Ludwig close to him and crushing his lips against the younger man's. He heard the dim gasps, knew they were far above the recriminations of a few bar patrons, ignored them. Ludwig's thick fingers buried themselves in his hair, his tongue swiping against his lips, aggressive in a way Gilbert didn't remember, wasn't like the pines and the mountains he'd felt before in the other man's touch. But it was welcome, fire in the cold, an insistent heat that left nothing but charred bone and God he never wanted to escape the stake.

They were kicked out in a matter of seconds. Something about the noises being too loud and disturbing the other patrons. They tumbled out into the snow, red-faced and hands clasped so tightly Gilbert was afraid Ludwig was going to break his wrist.

They made it as far as the bakery. And then only just.

Ludwig managed to close the door behind them with his foot, his hands tearing off Gilbert's hastily thrown on coat and scarf. Gilbert found himself with his back against the wall, his fingers pressing into the muscles of Ludwig's shoulders, his arms, chest, anywhere he could touch. Warm lips pressed insistently against his own, the sound of their labored breathing echoing through the empty shop, desperate groans, moments of silence when things fell too perfectly into place.

They broke the kiss, the thread that had been guiding them snapping suddenly. Ludwig's fingers stilled on Gilbert's belt, and for a moment their world tipped on an edge. Ready to fall.

Gilbert licked his lips, tasting beer and Ludwig and blood and bread.

"Your parents."

Ludwig's expression darkened for a moment.

"Forgot they exist."

"Bet they'd love t' hear that comin' from their only son."

"I'm sure they forget I exist on a regular basis. They'd be amenable."

Gilbert rolled his eyes, the frantic heartbeat that had seized him beating a tattoo in his chest. He could feel it in Ludwig's, too. Hear the noise of a thousand drums, dissonant and beautiful, trace a map against his skin, old scars, ruins and broken bits of stained glass.

Ludwig tugged his head back, roughness born of familiarity, his teeth and lips finding their mark in snow skin.

Gilbert rested his hand against the back of Ludwig's head, dimly afraid of what was in his arms.

Prometheus.

"God, Ludwig…" his humanity breathed, baring its neck for the teeth. "What are y—"

December 23rd, 1917.

The village had people in it.

Alive people, for once, which was an unpleasant change. It was so much worse making them go from alive to dead than from dead to ignored.

They watched them from broken windows and cracked open doors. Blue and brown and gray eyes peering at them through the splinters in the wood.

No green.

Interestingly enough.

Ludwig adjusted his pack, keeping his eyes on the ground as the defeated stared at them and hissed like feral animals. Threw rocks. Shouted in a language he'd learned once in school but had since forgotten. A guttural language the world thought beautiful but that only sounded like a curse to his ears.

The lieutenant was by his side, back ramrod straight and chest up like they' been trained. He was perfect as a conqueror, perfect as a victor. It was impossible to imagine him broken and crippled. Crying like some of the men were doing in the back rooms of their houses.

They struck up camp for the evening around the church in the center of town. Made their beds amongst the graves, talked loudly and freely because they could, because no one would understand them, because fear gave them absolute freedom. It was easy to see how a single man could become a tyrant. Awash in freedom, in terror, in the gazes of the victims through cracks in their windowpanes.

Ludwig made up his bed at the edge of camp, letting the cat crawl out of its little place in his shirt. It wandered around the area, letting out curious meows that were darling and a comfort to listen to amongst the boasting of the soldiers.

The lieutenant set his things down next to Ludwig, and the entire camp acted as though this were the natural order of things. That the two should be together, their arms touching, their hands brushing up against one another far too often. Either the rest of the troop was blind or they were possessed of the easy, exhausted acceptance that stole the minds of men who had seen far worse than two of their own kind talking softly to one another in the dark.

The church was ringed by an old stone wall, and the kitten made a beeline for a cluster of ivy next to the entryway. Ludwig followed it carefully, holding his breath when it scaled the wall, claws digging into the leaves and stems for pawholds, its tail arching up in proud defiance when it reached the top.

It trotted along the uneven rocks, stopping at a little gap to sniff at an old worm that had died trying to escape the mortar.

Ludwig took a sip from his canteen as he watched the animal, translating the shift of its muscles and little noises into bundles of words, parceled to record later in his notebook. A cat on a wall, its paws pink and raw from the cold, lonely eye peering off into the distance. Beautiful images – all of them separate. Together, a bit mundane. Best to describe in fragments.

He felt the lieutenant return to his side, and without a word he passed him the canteen.

"We'll be at the front proper tomorrow," the older man said, his voice a staccato, uncaring Morse code.

"I'm surprised there are islands of civilization like this left," Ludwig said quietly, quickly reaching out to guide the kitten before it took a suicide plunge.

"Some people don't have the survival instinct that perpetuates the species. It's a dangerous game they play, but buildings and roads can have a powerful holding effect. Stronger than any glue known to man," the lieutenant mused aloud, passing Ludwig back his canteen. He then smiled and leaned forward a bit, wiggling some of the grass in the kitten's way to watch it pounce and shred the desiccated fronds with its claws. Horror story and murder to idyll in an instant.

Ludwig let the older man be, able to sense after constant days together when the lieutenant valued silence. He took a step away from the heap of stones, admiring the tranquil surroundings, when a little flash of white caught his eye. He bent down slightly, fixating on a hole in the mortar. One blue eye peered in at him, and the next second it was gone.

Ludwig frowned and walked over to a break in the wall. He leaned through the gap and glanced down the wall. A girl had her back pressed against the stones, a terrified look on her face. She was staring back towards the village proper, towards a woman who was gesturing frantically for her to return. The woman was speaking French, so rapid Ludwig barely could catch a word. But when the girl tilted her head back, staring up at the cat, Ludwig knew.

He retreated back behind the wall and moved to the lieutenant's side again. The man was still playing with the cat, a look of pure, childish delight on his face.

Ludwig carefully picked up the cat, cradling it against his chest. He stroked its white fur, pressed his face against its ears and listened to it purr for just a moment. He heard the lieutenant's footsteps still.

"…Private?"

Ludwig lifted his head and gave the man a look of wretched apology.

"Tomorrow's the front," he said quietly.

The lieutenant looked startled for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed. He stared at the cat, and the look of betrayal that wrenched his features out of place made Ludwig feel ill.

"I'm sorry."

The lieutenant turned away, facing the wall again.

"Do it quickly."

Ludwig nodded and quickly pushed himself through the gap in the stones, the cat clutched against his chest. He walked towards the girl, and she looked ready to bolt, her brown hair falling in frantic eyes, fingers clutching at her dress.

But she didn't move. Her feet were rooted to the earth, threadbare shoes.

Ludwig knelt down in front of her, and wordlessly held the cat out.

It meowed softly, squirming its little body.

The girl gave him a confused look, peering through her dark bangs.

She spoke, words he did not recognize, the dialect, the speed, and he could only shake his head and murmur in the broken syllables he knew that it was hers now. To take care of it.

The girl visibly wavered, cast a glance towards her mother pacing frantically twenty feet away.

Little hands suddenly darted out, plucking the cat from Ludwig's grasp. It squirmed as it was hugged against the girl's white linen dress. A flash of teeth, a smile, and threadbare shoes went pitter-pattering away towards their mother.

Ludwig remained kneeling, watching the girl go, the small speck of white growing fainter and fainter. He thought he heard a little meow, an inquisitive, human noise, but it was quickly swallowed up by the air between them.

The mother took her daughter by the arm, scolding her in that universal tone, and then led her away. The cat was still in the girl's arms, and Ludwig let out a little breath, his heart breaking.

It wouldn't have ended well, anyway. Nothing soft and gentle and pure ever did, so close to the gas, the dirt. Where they were going over the fields.

He slowly pushed himself to his feet, his breast pocket feeling abnormally light, cold, and moved back through the crack in the wall. It may as well have closed behind him, the village blockading itself from them. Saving their women, their food, telegraphs of destroyed cities barring their windows and larders.

The lieutenant's men were different. They took their place among the dead, among the crosses that had no boundary of country, and lay their heads to rest. The lieutenant wouldn't let them cross that line back into civilization, away from the sanctuary. He wouldn't let it, he'd seen far too much, what happened when soldiers broke into homes with women and children and gold in the walls. Somehow they all understood that.

Ludwig made his way back towards his things, spying a shock of white hair buried underneath his blanket. He sat down next to the other man, resting a cautious hand on his shoulder.

The other figure didn't move. Didn't breathe, from the stillness of the blanket.

"You took her."

Ludwig's heart broke at the throttled voice.

He pulled his hand away, uncertain now if the touch would be welcome.

"You know as well as I do. We might not survive tomorrow."

The lieutenant pushed himself up in a sudden fury, dark eyes blazing with a vindictive horror Ludwig had only seen in the distant mortars, destructive, universal, holocaustic.

"I could have kept her safe, it – it wasn't just yours to give away, Private," the lieutenant hissed, and the words would have scalded save for the salt in his eyes.

Ludwig turned away, his chest tight.

"She would have died with us. Are you that desperate that you'd drag another living thing to its death."

The lieutenant let out an empty hyena laugh, grating and horrible.

"What do you think I've been doing, Private? What do you think I've done for as long as I can remember, what's a cat – a damn _animal _next to this. It will starve with them now instead of with us, you said you hated abandoned things, you talked about it as though it were a metaphor but unless it's a precious jewel or some other concrete sentiment you're content with throwing it away, is that it?! Without asking, without so much as warning – she wasn't just yours and –"

Ludwig turned and shoved his hand against the lieutenant's mouth, making him swallow the rest of his words and anger. He could feel his own eyes smarting, salt and anger and self-hatred but there wasn't anything he could do. Every mind in that camp knew where they were being sent. Knew why.

There was no one left.

"I need control," Ludwig said, his voice even to the point where it surprised him. "If I'm going to lose something, it's to be on my terms. I won't have more taken from me than I can help. If I could find a French girl to take you I would shove you over that wall and never look back, but there's no one, no one who would and so I have to take you with me and even so I can't help but be grateful there's no girl for you on the other side of that wall, that you'll be with me tomorrow and only with me, fuck all the rest they have their pictures and their memories but I have no one but you, no one b-but you and even the stories can't help any longer –"

He bowed his head, ashamed of the wetness on his cheeks and in his throat.

If the cat was innocence, then the lieutenant was sin. He deserved to die, they all did, every single one resting atop the graves so far from home. Waiting for the next day for the siege, the fire that would kill every little cat nestled inside a breast pocket, all the pictures, all the stories, the pens to write them with. No one would hear them, no one could even if they screamed until their lungs bled because they deserved it. They were human, writhing maggots fighting over a rotten tree stump, only human sent to die, eighty years, twenty for these men. Such a brief candle. Barely a page.

Ludwig pressed his face against his hand, broad, proud shoulders wracked with silent sobs.

They were so far from home. He could feel it in his chest, that pull towards Berlin, towards the mountains, towards the south and the forest. Here was cold without snow, foreign, not like the textbooks where they studied the accents and guttural noises but unfriendly and no one asked how they were, if they would like a cup of tea. There were only curses and things they didn't teach in books and cats on the other side of walls.

Ludwig felt the lieutenant rest his hand against the back of his neck, pulling him close to rest against his hollow chest. The older man bowed his head, his breath cold as he whispered in their language, stupid idioms no dictionary held, words that defied definition, and he clung to the man as though he were drowning. Missing his pet that he'd written a thousand pages of in his head, the fire, the trenches even with their rat-like familiarity.

"I-It's too cruel," he cried, hearing the lieutenant's medals shake. "It's too cruel, sir, I don't want to die…"

"I know, Private," the lieutenant said quietly, rough fingers in his hair and against his cheek. "We aren't like the rest of them. We understand the fear, the nothingness that follows. The pointlessness of these headstones. We're the ones truly afraid, and that's why we can't let them know. Promise me."

Ludwig nodded, his voice failing him. The sermon was familiar. Heard before in a distant past, another graveyard. Horse hooves pawing at the dirt. The lieutenant so much taller, his face fuller and his eyes brighter but still so incredibly sad as they stood before a statue of a king. His lips moved, but no sound came forth. A silent picture without the orchestra, no narrator. And the lieutenant, clothes ancient and face unchanged, still in the grip of the harshness of youth. And his own hand, so small, useless to comfort, to do anything but hold onto a sleeve while the elder silently cried.

There was the smell of death on the men around them. Their breath different degrees of rot that spelled their years, and the lieutenant's like pine, like the snow. Always winter with the promise of spring to come. Too cold to rot.

The church bells tolled, and Ludwig tightened his arms around the thing against his breast, his pockets empty.

"One more night," he heard him whisper.

The needles in the trees quivered.

"We might make it, Private. There's no reason to be so morose. You remember, don't you. Living this night a thousand times befor—

December 23rd, 1947.

He sat underneath a barren tree, his legs folded. He stared out over the gray ocean, listening to the waves kiss the rocky shore.

There was a deity. Far across the sea on the other side of the world, who had sat under a tree until he understood. Every blade of grass, every click of a tongue as a woman muttered, the hum of bee wings. He understood everything, saw its web before him, dew drops like jewels stretching out into the Thus Come One, that was his name, this deity. Title, really. The prince who sat beneath the tree and heard the world's life in one rattle of breath.

He couldn't sleep any longer. Not the prince under the tree but the man trapped on the island. Dark dreams haunted his thoughts, waking or asleep, but awake there was the ocean and the gray. Asleep there was nothing. No trees, no wind. No matches.

They were dreams of summer. Of cornflower blue and mud in boots, boiling blood in eyes, the screams. The religious half called it the afterlife, but when he asked heaven or hell, it fell silent, confused. There were great men in his dreams, their faces decaying with age before his eyes faster than he could blink. Men he'd known, he'd kissed, he'd touched. Knew intimately and at a distance, men who wanted nothing more than to kill him, fetter him, drain his blood for their alchemy and he'd outlived them all despite the horrors and the torture. Lived a thousand of their lives in his dreams, all empty and bleak. Pointless lives. Gripped in the winter of his depression, monotony, gray. Brown leaves clinging desperately to trees as the wind ripped at them, begging to be green again, crying at the spruce and the pine.

Until his summer came.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, resting against the tree, and remembered summer. Warm skin, lying in a pool of sunlight on a marble floor. Gilded ceilings and Technicolor angels above him, bright with their lead paints. The sound of a distant piano, a child's footsteps, lazy sounds that floated with the gossamer curtains in the breeze. Small hand in his, chubby fingers and unsure grip, and by the time he felt the touch against his palm his own hand was swallowed up by calluses and strength. Gentle against his skin. Linen sheets and bay windows opening into an insular garden. The complacency of a summer afternoon, endless gold and light.

He felt it so clearly, the kiss of the sun, but he knew that the moment he opened his eyes his world would be whitewashed again. He would lose the feathered touches, the dreams that persisted into day, becoming memories that weren't his, not really his, not what was stuck in this body, on an island. They were forcing their way into his head, thousands of years of existence trying to make room inside a human brain and the more he dwelled on them, the more they seeped in through the cracks in his consciousness without something to anchor him, the more he was swept away.

His mind was lost now. Was he on an island or in a garden, a battlefield, a room with a four post bed with a warm body in it, a hole in the ground, a church, a bakery, 1342, 1638, 1859, 1917. Thousands of newspapers in his hands. A piece of charcoal, quill, fountain pen, pencil. A hundred languages in his head. The word for duck in French, the way bread scraped at the back of your throat in Russian, soft lilt of flower names in some Eastern tongue recently known to him. Billions of images, feelings, rawer than what any human could hope to describe in any language, with any pen. Beautiful buildings and dirt huts and he'd lived in every one of them, in every school room, every cathedral every cabin perched in a field on top of a mountain in the south after summer came and he could see them all, knew where every book went on the shelf in this manor and the loose floorboard in the Abbey, was there all at once, a horde of people pressing in on him, praying to him cursing him he could see it, he was _there._

And when he opened his eyes, it fled from him. His brain was his alone, there was no touch, no summer. There was only the island.

Alone.

Gray.

The sea loomed in his vision, the swell of waves growing closer.

He ran his thumb over the edge of the match-box in his pocket. The sun was up. That was all he knew and all he needed to know.

Blackened fingers struck the match, and the man burst into life, bringing with him the palaces, gardens, bullets, mud, pine.

They're almost done

Gilbert

How are you

He licked his lips, the skin so broken they bled the moment he tried to speak.

"I'm. Lost."

The figure flickered with panic, the blue match-head dancing in an evil wind.

No

No you're not remember

You're not lost you have me

And I'm going to find you I promise

It just might take some time

Do you want me to tell you more

Whatever you need just don't leave me

He slowly shook his head, the rich timbre his mind's summer.

"You said… you were lost once, too."

The match quieted, rough fingers reaching out as though to touch.

I was

Have been actually

Many times

"How did you become. Un… lost."

You

No hesitation.

Every time

Even the last before this when everything was terrible

And this time you weren't here but

There was a picture of you

And of me

And we were impossibly old

Or rather

We were impossibly young but in an old frame

I didn't believe it was me

I held it up next to my face in the mirror for about an hour trying to understand

Then the dreams started and then I woke up and I was suddenly everything

And I looked for you

I was frantic

Because if I was everything this time then what were you

I'd only been half before you had our heart but this time it was mine

A temporary measure they'd surmised but I was furious

They took advantage of it

The universe has the worst fucking timing for us no one else has ever been shoved into humanity right at the end of a war

He listened to the ranting, a small smile on his bleeding face. He remembered pictures. Blood on cave walls, pigments, oils, flashes of light and glass plates.

He held up his hands, studying the blackened skin. There was white underneath, somewhere. He knew he was pale. He felt his face. Pointed nose, badly mended break. Deep set eye sockets. Sharp cheek-bones.

"What do I look like?"

He could dream a thousand things, he knew he'd stared into a mirror at one point but the image was fuzzy like the rest of the people in the visions. Indistinct like the match.

The figure wavered a bit, a glow haloing the face.

Handsome

I guess

A bit rough around the edges

The crooked nose doesn't do your face any favors

Your chin is rather pointy you used to pretend to stab me with it when I was younger

Deep set eyes

You look so serious despite the drivel that sometimes comes out of your mouth

Your lips are a bit on the thin side but soft

Long neck

Your upper half is very graceful

The rest of you not so much

You like to trip over things when there's no one around to impress

You think it makes me laugh but really you're just an asshole because it startles me every damn time

Girls who look your age always stare and not simply because you're so pale if you fell into a snow bank you'd disappear

When they realize what we are though they look away

That's not your fault though

You have a soldier's face

It's dear to me but

It can be frightening sometimes too

God I can't believe you're asking me this

It's so like you to want an ego boost on death's door

"I didn't know I was handsome," he pointed out, closing his eyes again. "How could it be an ego boost if I didn't know it was going to be good news. What color are my eyes."

Red

A dark royal color on most days

Or when you're angry

Pale when you're that kind of sick we get

When we're losing

Almost violet

You're normally self-conscious

I think the knights used to torment you because of them

"I see."

He swallowed heavily, the motion painful.

"Ludwig."

Yes

The word was practically a cry of relief.

Yes

You finally said it without me reminding you

Are you remembering

"I don't know. What do you look like."

Boring

Like everyone else I think

I'm the most archetypical out of everyone

Blonde blue eyes

Nothing really

If I were a character in a book a few words would be enough to describe me I think

"But you just spent five minutes talking about me. I don't care about me anymore. What do you look like besides blonde and blue."

The match flickered a bit, the flame growing close to the end.

I look

I don't know

I scare most everyone I think

My face is rather harsh

I have your cheekbones I guess

Without your smile though so it just comes off as terrifying

My nose is straight at least

I don't know

I only look at myself to shave or when I brush my teeth

I've spent decades memorizing your face I couldn't give a shit about what I look like

It made him happy but

He was a raving lunatic

You're much more interesting I used to wish I looked like you

But when I told you that when I was little you hit me and that's

A memory I wish I hadn't gotten back to be honest

He listened to the words, sorting through the hesitation, the useless anecdotes. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, squeezing until he saw stars amongst the palaces but still he couldn't remember. Blonde hair blue eyes harsh face straight nose, generic useless words that couldn't build anything.

He let out a frustrated sob, slamming his head back against the tree.

He couldn't remember.

Hundreds of years worth of memories jammed inside his skull and he couldn't remember the only thing he wanted.

Gilbert

Don't force yourself

If you throw yourself in at once it can be overwhelming

Your head can't take it

You're only human right now

"Just one thing."

His voice was barely a whisper, his energy bleeding out into the tree. How was it possible to know everything and have it all be useless.

"God above I only want this one thing," he begged, religion taking over as the match fell from his broken fingers.

"Just this one thing, just his face. Please, God in Heaven just let me see his fac—

December 24th, 2027.

There was an alien unsettlingness waking up in a bed not your own. Didn't matter that 'unsettlingness' wasn't a word, that's what it was. The unsettled. A thing that pricked at the corner of your mind as dawn dragged you out of sleep's claws. Unfamiliar sheets. Smells. Noises in the building. The hum of a broken heater in the hallway. Footsteps.

The cliché, when waking up in a bed not your own, was humiliation. All tense silences and quick fumblings for clothes and awkward goodbyes, if there were any to be had at all. It made you wonder how on Earth people didn't foresee this terribleness. Was it really that hard to get showered and go home after sex? Not even in that order, necessarily. Much more comfortable using your own shower anyway, the one where you knew if you inched the handle a fraction of a degree to the left the water was suddenly Hades, as opposed to being warned about it five seconds too late and having to endure a few minutes' worth of apologies that did little to soothe burned skin.

Gilbert found himself waking up in a bed not his own, to the opposite of a cliché. Which was, in and of itself, a different sort of terrifying.

He woke up to the feeling of settlingness. A ring of dust around a jar on the shelf, marking where it should always be. The little indents in a carpet that showed where a table ought to stand. He knew how to turn the shower to the right temperature, where the shirts were kept in the closet, the spoons in the private family kitchen downstairs. Which channel had the best news at five and how long it took, on foot, to get to the supermarket if he left at nine.

He woke up belonging in a house that wasn't his.

His cheek was pressed against warm skin, legs comically entwined with the other's, blankets army-neat and ordered. The sound of human life echoed through the floorboards. The smell of bread. The muffled, disjointed chorus of a dozen conversations, the rise and fall of a chest against his own. All horribly foreign things, and it was still dark outside. He could see through his eyelids that it was still dark, and for a moment the presence of conversation confused him until he remembered yesterday, the ladder, the statue (God he was going to have to do something about that), the heads, the table. All the little objects of his yesterday life, shoved around in his head into some semblance of chronology, verb, object, missing the subject.

The body beneath his stirred, and a small exhale of breath let Gilbert know he was awake.

Gilbert cautiously opened his eyes and sat up, the blankets pillowing around his waist. He immediately hissed with the shock of cold and burrowed underneath them again, rubbing his arms to keep warm. Naked and winter. Only a Finnish man would be so stupid to test the elements against his nethers.

He felt Ludwig snort quietly – his subject of all the verbs from yesterday in all his grace – and a warm arm wrapped around his shoulders.

"That was very dumb of you so early in the morning."

"At least I have my answer as to whether or not you wake up charmin' or if it's somethin' that sorta congeals throughout the day," Gilbert muttered, pressing his face against Ludwig's chest to warm his freezing cold nose. The other man squirmed, trying to get away, but Gilbert let out a little growl and sunk his fingers into Ludwig's ribcage to keep him from moving. Ludwig resigned himself after a moment, but he lightly pinched Gilbert's shoulder.

"I should get my mother to knit you a nose warmer if you're going to be staying over here on a regular basis."

"A nose warmer. How the fuck would that even work."

"Mask, shaped like a nose, ties around the head. Not that complicated, Gilbert, try and keep up."

Gilbert rolled his eyes and gently bit Ludwig's chest in retaliation. Nipple. Maybe. He was too tired to really aim properly. It earned him a light hit to the back of the head, regardless, before they both fell still again.

Ludwig cleared his throat.

"I'm really terrible at this part. Please chalk it up to my lack of experience when it comes to… sleeping with someone on the… God on the first date."

Ludwig groaned and pressed a hand against his face.

"That wasn't even a date," he muttered, his ears slowly going red. "We didn't even drink the beer, we just sort of… made out in its vicinity."

Gilbert opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows so he could get a proper look at Ludwig. Even in the dim light, it was obvious the younger man was sporting several sizeable bites and bruises around the neck area. And from his general soreness Gilbert could only assume he wasn't looking much better.

"Considerin' my terrible track record, I'm willin' t' call that a date. Two dates. Let's call it three, that's the requisite number you're supposed to go on before you end up in someone else's bed. Er, uh… speakin' of which…"

He quickly glanced around the room, taking in the general absence of anything personal. Nothing at all. Not even a single poster or picture.

"Very… serial-killer of you," he said slowly, wondering if Ludwig's mother had thrown things out, put them in storage, or if Ludwig had simply never felt the need for personal items. "I'm surprised the walls aren't covered in plastic sheets."

Ludwig lowered his hands and glanced up at Gilbert, a nearly invisible smile on his face.

"Remind me to show you the basement once we get cleaned up."

"Ah yes. That whole part where we… sort of face reality," Gilbert mumbled, ducking his head again. "Right…"

"We don't have to," Ludwig said with an absent shrug of his shoulders, his thumb lightly massaging the base of Gilbert's neck. "We could just stay here. No consequences if we do, or realities, really. I will have to burn this whole bed at some point though, so there is that going against it. Hygiene. You know how it is." He frowned slightly and then pulled Gilbert's necklace out from underneath the blankets. Gilbert went slightly cross-eyed, watching the younger man fiddle with the ring.

Blue eyes met his, and there was a spark of something there. The same familiarity that made them both know they weren't going anywhere for a while. It wasn't a terribly exciting spark, just something that should have always been there.

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

Gilbert let out a dramatic sigh and flopped back down against Ludwig's chest.

"She was the daughter of a jeweler, I but a poor errand boy, our story a tragedy too tragic to put to paper or dare utter with –"

"Family heirloom?" Ludwig asked, as though he hadn't heard.

"Yes," Gilbert responded, as though he didn't care. "For a few generations, I think. Ugly, but I don't know. Maybe my grandmother got it on with a Russian soldier or somethin', it's got writin' on it."

Ludwig leaned in closer, peering at the ring, and on impulse Gilbert kissed him, letting his fingers comb through the short hairs around his ears and at the nape of his neck. Ludwig leaned into the touch, but pulled away a moment later, still studying the ring.

"Yes, we'll talk about that in a minute," he murmured, his eyes lighting up. "It says 'love.' By the way."

Gilbert wrinkled his nose.

"It does? God that's lame. I could've gone without knowin' that. Thought it would say somethin' more interestin', like, 'forged in the fires of the islands of the North, said to bring ruin to all'—"

"Gilbert, it's six characters long. How could it possibly have said all that."

"Compact language," Gilbert answered without missing a beat, sticking out his tongue.

Ludwig snorted quietly and let go of the ring, letting it fall. It swung like a pendulum before resting against Gilbert's chest again, and in the silence that followed they both regarded one another.

"…Is it time to talk about this?" Gilbert finally asked, his voice subdued. The smell of bread seeping under the door was starting to become cloying. "I mean it's… what… are we? An' I don't just mean like what do I change my Facebook status to. Last night was a bit…" He fumbled for words, trying to shove together a dictionary to explain the odd stitching that had dictated their actions last night.

"It was… intense."

Ludwig snorted quietly, but there was a slightly troubled look on his face. "I think that there might be a need for words. Yes," he said, just as softly, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of Gilbert's eyes. Gilbert flinched away and fixed Ludwig with a deer-in-the-headlights look that did nothing for him. He laughed awkwardly and quickly fixed his hair himself.

"S-So we're uh… we're there already, huh?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

Ludwig looked honestly surprised and stared at his hand with a stupid, dumbfounded expression on his face before he obligingly pulled away a bit.

"I fixed your hair, I didn't… I don't know. Fondle your genitals in front of a crowd," he mumbled.

Gilbert snorted quietly, but the little jab was oddly comforting, in a way, and he settled down again.

"Well that was, uh… this was my first time stayin' over after – can't even really call it a date after all, can we, let's call it spontaneous attraction – this is my first time post-spontaneous attraction," he confessed, wrinkling his nose. "So I'm not sure what protocol is here. Do I – do I clothes? Shower? Hide until your parents go away?"

Ludwig looked confused.

"Parents? What—oh _dammit_."

He quickly scrambled out of bed, and Gilbert politely averted his gaze as the younger man went tearing around the room. Cocks looked so weird flopping around when guys ran. He didn't think he could handle that at – he checked the clock – five in the morning.

"As much as I'm enjoyin' this very high-paced start to my day, you tuggin' on pants doesn't really answer my question – okay maybe it answers one," he said lightly, lying back down for lack of anything better to do.

"I know – I'm sorry," he heard Ludwig say, the man somehow not out of breath despite the fact that he'd probably done five laps of his room by then. "I didn't do any of the prep work last night, the bakery opens in an hour –"

"You guys are open on Christmas Eve?"

"We have a commitment to customer satisfaction and my mother is a fucking sadist Scrooge."

"Fair enough."

Gilbert cracked open an eye, and when he saw that Ludwig was fully clothed (more or less, his shirt was only half buttoned but good enough) he pushed himself up on his elbow again, fixing the younger man with a slightly shy, nervous look.

"So what – I mean do you just want me to go?" he asked, feeling more and more unsure by the second.

Ludwig turned around to stare at him, a bit of panic in his eyes. And a toothbrush in his mouth.

"Whut? Nu, dun gu."

He took two steps over to the sink in the corner and spat before turning around again to face Gilbert, his fluffy hair nearly covering his eyes. "I mean – you can go if you want to," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Prep won't be more than an hour, though, and when I come back we can go out and – and get lunch or I mean we could go help with the tree, they're lighting it tonight you know and… I mean I feel like if you left then it would just be that. What you said before. Just sort of – a one night. And I know I'm starting to sound like an asshole and it's probably weird as hell you staying in some near stranger's room naked – I'm using too many adjectives, just –"

"It's fine," Gilbert said quickly, more to stop the man from babbling than anything else. Really the whole situation was quickly becoming a painful, awkward affair and his instincts were telling him half to bolt half to somehow detain Ludwig in his room until he figured out what exactly happened the night before. "I don't mind, I really don't. You've got, uh…" He scanned the room, his eyes landing on the one other piece of furniture that wasn't strictly utilitarian. "You've got books!" He gestured to the bookshelf. "Lots of them. I like books, I can read – God I mean of course I can read, what kind of asshole just – no okay I'm talkin' too much, it's fine, it's really fine."

Ludwig visibly relaxed and gave Gilbert a grateful smile. He walked over to the bed and then leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. Gilbert wrinkled his nose, but refrained from comment. It tickled. Ludwig's bangs were too long.

"I'll bring you breakfast," Ludwig promised, standing up and touching his lips as though to check that they were still there. "It'll be about an hour."

"Right, uh… you don't… I mean you don't need t' go outta your way," Gilbert mumbled, still flustered by the little intimate kiss.

"It's downstairs. It couldn't be more in the way," Ludwig deadpanned, fixing Gilbert with a look that said he was starting to doubt the older man's earlier assertion that he could read. He headed for the door, but just before he left Gilbert realized something important.

"L-Ludwig, hold up."

The blonde turned to raise an eyebrow at Gilbert, and Gilbert offered him a slightly embarrassed, lopsided grin.

"Pants?"

Ludwig's cheeks turned red.

"Yours aren't – oh."

His face was suddenly very much not red. More of a sickly white.

"Down…stairs."

"You didn't seem to mind at the time, although I distinctly remember makin' a point about how we were violatin' several health codes," Gilbert said lightly, his own ears red.

"Yes – God I remember just… stop talking," Ludwig mumbled, not unkindly, as he made his way to his closet and rummaged around for a minute. He returned to the bed and lay out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. "These might fit. You're a bit slimmer in the waist than me if – if memory uh. Serves."

He cleared his throat again before saying brusquely, "I need to go before the yelling really starts. An hour –"

"Ludwig, I'll be _fine,_" Gilbert said in near exasperation, biting his lip to keep from smiling. "I'll scream like a damsel in distress if I need you, promise."

The blonde stopped talking and had the decency to look chagrined. He nodded once, and then turned and headed out the door, leaving Gilbert to get dressed in peace.

With clothing on he felt a bit more relaxed – some of the earlier glow had started to seep away from all the awkward nervousness – and after a bit more mental prep to face the cold, he pushed himself out of bed and headed over to the bookshelf. He examined the titles – mostly non-fiction, go figure – and selected one about some war in the Baltics he'd never heard of and settled down in Ludwig's bed again.

And promptly fell asleep.

He woke up to the sound of a door closing, and carefully sat up, pushing the book off his face. Ludwig was standing in the doorway with a tray of orange rolls and hot chocolate and Gilbert could have kissed him.

Except that it wasn't just a hypothetical sort of could, he actually could in whatever weird string-theory universe had brought them physically together.

He held out his arms, making grabby hands for the food, and after a bit of requisite eye-rolling Ludwig obliged. He set the tray down next to Gilbert, and said blandly, "You owe me a billion of whatever currency is worth the most right now. Trying to explain to my mother why there were boxers strewn about the dining area was a scenario I never thought I would have to rehearse for, so she did catch me slightly off guard."

"What did you tell her?" Gilbert asked, and then promptly shoved an orange roll in his mouth.

Ludwig shrugged and helped himself to a pastry as well.

"The truth."

Gilbert could only stare at Ludwig in shock, not realizing he was being a disgusting monster until Ludwig reached out with a finger to gently close his mouth.

"No details, obviously. She was upset but I think it was more because I didn't get my work done before engaging in 'hanky panky.' Her words," he said evenly.

Gilbert licked his fingers free of frosting as he thought, his brows knit. His parents didn't know he was gay. Not a conversation he was looking forward to having. Especially not if he had to explain that he'd just slept with the first guy he'd found attractive in years on the first day they'd done so much as kiss.

"You give her my name?"

"Apparently your mother is very worried you're going to lose your undergarments in random places. Your name was sewn into the label." Ludwig deadpanned.

Gilbert went white as a sheet and pressed his hands against his face in mortification.

"Oh. Jesus."

Ludwig patted him on the shoulder.

"I don't think he can do much for your reputation either. Nice of you to remember him on his birthday eve, though."

"Let me die," Gilbert groaned, slowly leaning to the side to rest against Ludwig. "I've never been more humiliated in my entire life –"

"I'd say you've led a pretty easy life, then," Ludwig said quietly, and Gilbert could hear the grin in his voice.

He elbowed the man in the gut and was rewarded with a few satisfying wheezing noises.

He sat up again and padded over to the dresser, tugging the drawers open until he found socks. He yanked on the warmest looking ones and then faced Ludwig again.

"So how long before your mother tells my mother?" he grumbled. "I want to count down my last hours on earth."

"Depends what time she comes in to get the rolls she ordered," Ludwig said, a note of real sympathy in his tone. He stood up and moved to Gilbert's side, lightly punching his shoulder.

"Want to get out of here?"

Gilbert blinked and looked around before fixing Ludwig with a purposefully confused smile.

"I'm sorry, is this a bar? I thought it was your creepily barren childhood bedroom."

"I'm a creepily barren person, I just like things to match," Ludwig deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. "Although I would tone down the sarcasm in the face of someone who's trying to help you avoid what's probably going to be an awkward and terrible lecture."

"Right! Right," Gilbert said quickly, rushing over to the mirror to make sure he looked presentable (good enough) and then returned to Ludwig's side. He felt that strange thread tugging him closer, and with a resigned sigh he muttered, "I want to hold hands. Don't – don't fuckin' comment."

Ludwig looked surprised, but without a word he grabbed Gilbert's hand, tugging him out the bedroom. They took the back stairs, stopping by the mudroom so Gilbert could get his boots on, and then headed outside. The cold nearly took Gilbert's breath away, and he shuddered, pressing himself closer to Ludwig.

"Fuck I hate the cold," he muttered, unsurprised somehow when Ludwig said a quiet, "I know."

They walked in silence for a bit, heading towards the tree on autopilot. There were a few men working already, last minute preparations before the little presentation at midnight. Choral singers, manger, all that.

Before they could actually hear the voices, though, Gilbert tugged on Ludwig's hand, stopping him.

"There's just – okay so all that earlier talkin' business, I get the feelin' it's gonna take a while an' t' be fair I'm not sure I have it in me right now," he said quietly. "An' it's so weird 'cause part of me is like 'why the hell do we have t' talk anyway' but not 'cause I'm jaded or whatever bullshitty thing or 'cause I don't wanna see you again but 'cause it just –"

"It was something we always do," Ludwig quietly interrupted, a troubled look on his face. "We've just never done it before."

"Right!" Gilbert exclaimed, relieved that Ludwig understood because he sure as fuck didn't. "That's it exactly. An' last night – I mean it wasn't just sex or – I mean it was _great _sex," he hurriedly added. "You were great, very uh—very muscle, great thighs, very tight as—"

"Don't," Ludwig said politely, his hand tightening on Gilbert's in warning.

"—just great stuff, right," Gilbert continued, his face bright red. "But it wasn't just that, I mean it was… I don't know how t' say it without riskin' soundin' like really bad _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ fanfiction but I'm not… wrong, right? It wasn't just physical, it was sorta…"

"Metaphysical?" Ludwig dryly supplied.

"Yeah, that whole philosophical branch an' then some," Gilbert said quietly, fiddling with his ring again. "An' this could just be my ego talkin' but it sorta felt… important. I bet every guy who sticks his dick in things thinks that about the act but it… was. Right?"

He fixed Ludwig with a pleading glance.

"I felt like I was goin' legit crazy last night," he said weakly. "An' not the weak in the knees kind. Hearin' drums, feelin' like… I dunno. Like the first man who tried to touch fire. Like I knew it was dangerous but I had t' know."

"It's possible we are going crazy, although I haven't heard of a joint psychotic break sharing so many similarities," Ludwig muttered, the troubled look still darkening his features. "But… what can we talk about?" He quirked his lips up in a wry smile. "I make my living, more or less, translating words into concrete ideas, and I've been trying since last night to do the same with this and it's trying to assemble one puzzle from five thousand different sets and I don't even have any idea what the final picture is going to be like."

He shrugged his broad shoulders, but his hand tightened protectively around Gilbert's.

"But you're in it," he said simply. "So I don't really give a fuck what it looks like other than that."

Gilbert blinked his eyes, feeling them smart for some reason. He scrubbed at his face, biting his lip so hard it nearly broke the skin.

"Yeah," he said quietly, glancing up at the white sky as a few flakes started to drift down. "What the hell am I so worried for? I don't know why I'm so anxious, or why it feels like no matter how much of you I touch that someday you might just poof and disappear on me like some lame magician."

Ludwig snorted again and tilted his head to the side, resting it against Gilbert's as he stared up at the snowy sky as well.

"Lame magician," he repeated softly, the snow dictating stillness and hush. "I can guarantee on my pride I'm not that. Not a wizard, not… much of anything really."

His arm tightened around Gilbert's shoulders, and Gilbert leaned into the touch, closing his eyes as they continued to sting.

"I'm just Ludwig. Only huma—


	3. Part Three

**Samsara**

**Three**

December 24th, 1917.

Ludwig slowly opened his eyes.

The sky was marble. Streaks of gray and white, the floor he could remember in a summer palace. He could press his ear to the floor, feel the rumble of carriages, the laughter outside in the gardens. Half a year ago, in summer. Decades of summers ago.

The ground beneath him shook as another mortar hit the earth. He turned his head to the side, watching one of the men die. A new recruit, picked up in the village. He couldn't remember his name.

The man's blue eyes stared back at him. He flickered. A visual of static on the radio, generic garbled to the point where language, country of origin were lost.

That was the man who had insisted they go this way. A little girl had told him, hugging a cat to her breast, had told them where the soldiers were, her mother nodding along, sharp lines on her cheeks and under her eyes. They'd matched intel. They'd listened, radios crackling. The man had insisted; several others had joined in.

The man flickered again, frozen earth in his place. Just a cog. The little tip of a finger once the dominos were in a line.

Ludwig slowly turned his head again to stare up at the sky. His hearing was starting to return. He heard men scream, their cries disjointed, little puppet hinges, legs and arms in need of repair. Next to him the lieutenant groaned, a low, animal noise of pure pain. They were only a few feet away from one another, but Ludwig couldn't move. The ground was growing wet beneath him, warmth melting the permafrost. He wondered if he was going to sink. Swallowed up by the earth and then that would be it. Nothing. Nothing to follow but pain, more pain, his senses slowly returning. Blood pooling atop his stomach, his useless legs, bones and sinews ripped he was dying.

Several of the fallen soldiers around them flickered, the snow passing through them to rest on the ground. The most vocal ones. The dominos lined up. Creating a path that would have always led the two of them here. To the ground, to the pain. To the loss.

Panic seized him, the dull tranquility and silence ripped away as the soldiers flickered. He turned his head, wide, terror-filled eyes seeking something real to hold on to.

The lieutenant was on his back as well, deep set eyes open, thin lips parted as he struggled for breath. His head lolled to the side, facing Ludwig. One eye was gone. A jagged, bloody smear where it had been.

His lips forced upwards in a pained smile, fingers crawling spider-like across the earth, seeking his.

"West…"

The blood in his brother's hair. The graveled voice whispering to him at court, in the ballrooms of foreign homes, in the royal library at night with only the lanterns and the monks to hear them. A thousand summer days, a thousand winters huddled in front of fires, blankets tucked around them, narcissistic in each other. The pain of loss bringing them back each time, wrenching them away from mortality. Fear and humility the gift givers.

Gilbert's voice cut though his humanity, his outstretched hand offering the saw to start severing it from the bone. Memories flooded in, repairing the rips and tears, keeping him tethered as he slowly continued to die.

Ludwig reached out as best he could, his body screaming with the agony of his wounds.

His hand found his brother's, and he held on, watching the snow melt against their skin.

He licked his lips and forced himself to speak.

"I lost your gloves."

Gilbert let out a little breath, human fear still enough in his eyes that Ludwig knew he wasn't alone.

"I need to make myself a note for the next time this happens," he murmured. "Do not… lend my baby brother expensive things like leather gloves. He will be incredibly lax…"

"Next time?"

Ludwig let out a panicked burst of noise, the men around them flickering with his distress.

"N-No… no there can't be a next time," he said weakly, feeling the blood seeping through his clothing, down his arm.

Gilbert's smile turned soft with understanding and he threaded their fingers together, the slick copper making it difficult to hold on otherwise.

"I am sorry, Ludwig," he said quietly. "There will always be a next time. A next life. Unless you succumb now. But that's your choice, and I know my little brother." His red eye lit up with pride. "He's no weakling. You'll make the right call, just like you did last time and the time before. Just like you always will."

Last time.

Visions of a different pain, an illness in the lungs. Struggling to breathe, and for so long Gilbert hadn't been there. Ludwig had been alone, a child dying and alone and feeling the weight of a mortal's life, disease and poverty, tormented in his dreams by an existence he didn't understand, of marble and gardens in summer. In the end Gilbert had been there, holding his hand. Coaxing the death of humanity from him again. It had been agony. Just like the time before.

Ludwig swallowed heavily, his guts slipping out of place as he moved, struggling to be closer. He clung to his brother's hand, blinking the snow from his eyes. The world around them had gone quiet. The front had moved on, left them. The distant echoes of mortar shells the only indication there had been anything at all to test them.

"How… how many times have I died?"

"I don't know," Gilbert said quietly, pity in his voice. "I wasn't there for all of them. Back before we—"

His words were interrupted by a fit of coughing, blood flecks drifting up to stain the snow as it fell. Making them plummet to the ground.

He caught his breath again but remained facing the sky, his eyes closing.

"Before we had an understanding… before I… I came to cherish your existence. I would leave you on your own. To fend off mortality for yourself," he said quietly. "Then after you became— after I began to care for you. The world can tell, I think. That it would be cheating if one of us were to remain as we're supposed to be, to guide the other out of the valley. To help them regain their memories before it was too late. To help them make the choice a god would want, not a human. It wouldn't be a true test, we wouldn't really learn what it was like. The choice wouldn't be real, it wouldn't matter… So we both had to fall..."

Ludwig watched the tears roll down his brother's cheek, his heart struggling to continue its movements. Giving him a few more minutes to watch the human he had fallen in love with be eaten away by the god.

"I don't want to do this anymore," he whispered, his voice giving out. "Brother, I – I can't… I can't spend an eternity waiting for the next time I have to watch you die. Be flung down into this mortality and feel myself… die. Call me a coward, I can't bear it any longer. The memories won't stop, they're clawing at my head I can feel – I can feel everything there's nothing to follow and God I never wanted it more. Just the blackness, no more of this no more of losing you, having you be a stranger to me there's going to be a time when I won't be able to find you, I'll have to live alone I'll have to die a thousand more times before I finally give in to what I could just end right here. End and finally be done with it all. I'm not strong like you, brother, I can't keep watching them die, keep watching you almost die knowing that some day it will be the last, I won't find you in time you won't remember in time, and then what will I do?! You'll be stuck as one of them for a pitiful sixty years, there will be nothing left for me but this grief of the body, this stupid decaying thing I could smell it on their breath yesterday, the rot! I just want it to end how many lives have we lived only to have to start over again leaving before we ever find peace?!"

He drew in a ragged breath and closed his eyes. He could feel his organs failing, one by one. Dragged out to torment, to make him feel what his humans did. All of them he'd walked over in the trenches. Every disease, every amputation, every rotten tooth bleeding into the brain.

Gilbert's fingers tightened against his own, a strength his brother shouldn't have still possessed.

"What?"

The betrayal in Gilbert's voice made him open his eyes, and Ludwig met his brother's shocked expression with a pleading one of his own.

"Please… please let me choose," he said softly, his thumb running over the back of Gilbert's hand, slick with red. "Let me go, brother. I only need to stay like this once. One time and it will be over. No more of this…"

The battlefield fell silent, holding its breath as the life slowly bled out of Germany.

Ragged fingernails tore into the back of his hand, and Ludwig let out a cry of pain as he was dragged across the earth. He flinched back at the rage in Gilbert's eye, his white teeth like fangs in his dark red mouth.

"Shut the fuck up," he hissed, his voice making the shells rattle in their canons. "You selfish little brat. Dying hurts? Dying hurts so you want to let go?! To spend your last few minutes as one of them?! Leaving me alone while you stay human and get to go off and have the luxury of non-existence while I have to stay here with the rest of these corpses?!"

With a burst of strength he reached out and grabbed the front of Ludwig's coat, yanking him closer to dig his fingers into the side of his brother's head.

"I'll fucking kill you myself before I let you die a human and leave me," he snarled, his eye glowing with panic and crazed, desperate anger. "I'll break down the gates of Hades and drag you back to immortality with me I swear to every god I've ever held dear! You can't leave me like this, in a fucking mud puddle in the middle of France! I won't be like the rest of them, we were special we had each other – you can't leave me you can't leave me alone like they are I'm not strong enough I'll go mad having to do this on my own but I can't go, not into the blackness I won't do it! I won't die a human I won't… I won't let myself give in…"

Gilbert closed his eye, silent, furious sobs wracking his frame. The snow settled against his coat, whisper-quiet and gentle. It clung to his long lashes, framing his face and what was left of his right eye.

Ludwig lay still, his brother's hand losing its grip on his coat. He took it in his own, pressed his fingers against his wrist to feel his heart beating. Erratic. Frenzied and human for a few moments longer before it slowly evened out until it was a steady cadence that never changed. Renewed each time, with every push of blood. The minute imperfections in Gilbert's skin faded, leaving only the important scars. The few freckles he had under his eyes. Gone. Crooked teeth straightened. Nose, curiously enough, unchanged. Still twisted slightly. From a punch, Ludwig remembered that much. One he'd delivered himself when they'd been fighting over something petty. That was why, probably. Inflicted by one of their own, it might never heal properly.

The last of Gilbert's humanity was bleeding away, leaving him beautiful and dangerous. Untouchable.

Ludwig drew in a ragged breath, the noise wet and disgustingly mortal in front of his brother. His vision was growing black around the edges, the dark comforting in its simplicity. He held Gilbert's hand, thoughts slowing to a crawl. He watched Gilbert stir, his lips twisting as he cried out in pain, undoing a mortal's death.

"Gilbert."

Gilbert turned to look at him, two eyes staring fixedly into his own through blood-soaked hair. Gilbert held onto his hand so tightly Ludwig felt the bones break. Red eyes filled with pain, with pure despair when he saw the marks still on Ludwig's face. The ripped earlobe, the gash down his side and into his gut. His legs.

"Brother…"

Gilbert swallowed heavily, pressing his palm against the wound in Ludwig's chest as though he could somehow heal it, could force his immortality onto the human in his arms. Gilbert let out a wrenching sob, bowing his head to press his eyes against Ludwig's shoulder, rocking back and forth in time with his heartbeat.

Ludwig closed his eyes, the warmth a comfort in his dying. All he could hear was Gilbert, all he could feel his touch. His smell, the ocean the soot of the city, the flowers in riverbanks.

"You have to promise," he murmured, the words smashed together in his struggle to form them.

He felt Gilbert still, his brother's breath sweet when he spoke.

"Anything, West – Ludwig, anything, whatever you want," he whispered, his voice cracking over the name.

Ludwig felt the tug of darkness, soft voices in his head. His brother's, his king's. Some poor child on the street, a newspaper publisher, farmer fallen to the scythe, a woman on her balcony, watering flowers.

"Promise me…"

He heard Gilbert gasp, felt the heat leave him when he pulled away. His weak heart sluggishly pumping what little blood he had left through his blue veins, its cadence gaining strength, evening out.

Ludwig slowly sat up, his bones knitting back together, organs shifting once more into place. The fallen soldiers around them flickered out of existence, several real corpses remaining behind. The rest an illusion. Little players in the story, guiding them to this inevitable end. To the choice. They'd been as fake as their human pasts. There was no orphanage in the slums of Cologne. No military academy with a graduated cadet who made lieutenant after only two years. The words in Ludwig's notebook were lies, his memoirs fiction. The pawns of their story had played their roles. That was all.

He lifted his head and saw sadness and joy in his brother's eyes, a hundred emotions too beautiful and sublime he never would have caught before, beyond the comprehension of the carcass he'd been.

He reached out and rested his hand against the back of Gilbert's head, pulling him in close to press their foreheads together.

"Promise me," he bit out, clinging to consciousness with resigned resolve. "Promise me that we will always find each other. Before our time runs out or I give in. Before we're human and lost you have to find me, you have to swear. Promise I'll never have to go through this alone…"

Gilbert's hand against his shoulder felt like ice, shocking his senses back into what they were supposed to be. His home calling to him, pulling him back towards the linden trees, the rivers, bidding him close his eyes and feel all of it at once. A million human hearts beating for him, for them, their sequence alien to him now and countless seconds in a breath.

"Ludwig, I swear it to you. I swear you will never be alone; I will never let you die a dog's death unless I am there by your side dying one too. I swear on our blood you will never be alone again," Gilbert said fiercely, his bones cracking with ice and the winter he held. He pressed his lips against his brother's, the touch gentle and fraught, pure and embroiled with all the complexities of their existence.

The snow continued to fall, melting against Ludwig's skin as he held his brother close, ignoring the noose still draped across his neck and watching the snow spread frost on Gilbert's skin.

They sat still for a long while, their uniforms soaked through with mud and ice. The pain had passed, but its mark lingered still whenever Ludwig drew breath. Rattling in his lungs. It had almost come too late, and from the tightening of his brother's arms he knew he understood it too.

The storm picked up its frenzy, and Gilbert slowly pushed himself to his feet, his hand still wrapped around Ludwig's. A moment later Ludwig followed suit, joints creaking as they tested their new limits. They looked as one towards the West, towards the front where their home was stretching out its blackened roots.

Ludwig wiped the human's blood from his skin and cast a glance towards his brother. Gilbert's eyes were bellicosity and light, the war god returned to his posture, but his mad eyes softened when they alighted upon him.

He reached out and touched Ludwig's cheek, a shred of humanity in his smile as he leaned in and whispered his promise, the words carried away on the snow.

"I promise, Ludwig."

"I will always find you."

December 24th, 1947.

The sea broke against his fingertips. Icy little whitecaps eating away at the island. What little was left of it. In the last few hours alone the island had sunk farther into the ocean. Its coordinates on the map fading as its lone inhabitant slowly lost his last battle.

He lay on his back, his clenched fist resting over his heart. He held the last match cupped in his palm, and waited. It was snowing, gentle and calm. Little tufts of snow floated on the water, islands of their own with their own dying things floating on board.

He stared up at the white sky, at the sun that must be there, holding its last rays in his hand. A part of him was worried he'd be unable to strike it, that the flint would fall from his fingers and be consumed by the encroaching waves. That he'd drop the match and it would be lost, he couldn't chase after it. Not when he could barely move his hands, barely open his eyes. The cold was hibernating in his bones now. Licking at the marrow.

He let out a slow, ragged breath, and carefully moved his hand away from the match. His fingers had been the first to die, and it was a painful, brittle struggle to get them to hold anything. The flint rested between little stubs, and with a last burst of energy he struck the match. The phosphorous flared to light, his own little sun.

He rested his head against the rock, watching as the gray around him faded, rich brocades, golden-flecked ceilings and ornate frames taking the place of the moss, the empty sky, the trees. The mirage was so real he could smell the dry rot in the pictures, see the chips in the marble floor.

Gilbert

Has there been any progress

What can you remember about me

Anything at all

Even that time I was horrible to you and pushed you off a balcony

Or when you abandoned me naked in the middle of a village and I had to walk back on my own

Just something anything might be enough to trigger it

I don't know how else to help you

I should be there with you

I promised you

I made you swear and I broke my own oath

He heard Ludwig begin to cry, and the clarity of the name made a grim smile take hold of him. He felt his cheeks break at the motion, the salt layer on his skin giving way to the blackening flesh beneath. When he spoke his voice was little more than a cicada shell, a death rattle, but he knew Ludwig could hear him.

"The palace is here again. But it's still empty," he murmured, reaching out his hand to bathe it in the light streaming through the window. His skin softened, turned pale and beautiful once more, the parts that danced in the sun and lost their winter.

A burst of salt spray broke through the palace walls, leaving little diamond drops against the windowpanes and glass covers on the pictures. The palace wavered, its edges like static on the radio. He held up the match, remembering those lanterns he used to play with. A picture rested in front of a flame, made enormous and frightening reflected on the wall. The people's faces twisting with the flickering candle, dogs Hell beasts and buildings surrealist edifices. The requisite element of the familiar to create the grotesque.

He heard Ludwig sigh and turned to face the noise coming from over his shoulder. The palace disappeared from view, and even through the dullness of the frost and the dying he felt a bolt of panic when he saw how little of the island was left. Only a few rocks to cling to, the tops of trees like drowning hands searching for purchase.

He must have gasped or made some other unconscious noise, for a moment later Ludwig spoke again, his voice frantic.

What is it

What's wrong are you remembering things

It's terribly painful to come back which is a bit ironic

"No – no I don't remember, but there's nothing left," he whispered, struggling to sit up before he drowned. "The island, the rocks… the sea is eating them too fast…"

The match fell silent, and for some reason that lit a different spark in him, one of anger. He longed to shake the match out, throw it into the sea, its unnaturally long burn and brightness making him feel sick.

"What?" he spat out, his voice hoarse and nearly dead. "You're hiding something from me – you've been hiding things from me since the beginning, playing games, dropping little hints without giving me anything to work with. You could have rescued me! I'm here, I'm _somewhere_ I have to be somewhere there's still the sky and the ocean there are real things here not these useless illusions you're showing me!"

He clamped a hand over his mouth as he started to cough, the coughing dissolving into dry heaves when it didn't stop soon enough. He lay with his cheek pressed against the cold stone, watching the beckoning sea. The match wavered in his grip, and through cloudy eyes he saw Ludwig, as dim as the static-polluted palace. Ludwig's face flickered into focus for a moment, familiar worry lines bringing less comfort and more anger to him.

Ludwig rested his head in his hands, and when he spoke his voice was nearly as horse as his had been.

I can't

I can't tell you things directly

It's one of the rules it stops me

I tried once and nearly threw up when I persisted

It

"Whose rules," he asked quietly, hell-bent on wringing out every last exegesis he could from the match.

Ludwig hesitated and lifted his head, blue eyes unfocused. Like a blind man's.

I don't know

And that isn't me hiding things from you

It just simply is like gravity or

Conservation of mass

A way for the universe to stay balanced I suppose

Ludwig fell silent, and then spoke again, his rough voice soft with apology around the edges.

I should have done this from the beginning

Ask me whatever you want Gilbert

It's obvious I'm not much good at anything but quoting facts

He splayed his fingers against the rock, watching as the snow eased the last of the color from them.

"What's happening to me."

You're dying

Ludwig's voice was even softer.

He blinked slowly as the familiar sleepiness began to set in, the gentle snow and icy water soporific.

"Why am I dying. And don't… say exposure. Or hunger. Don't say anything human, you know that's not what I'm asking."

Ludwig sat up a bit straighter, the matches of his eyes burning with more intensity than before.

You're distinguishing between the two

That's

I suppose that's good I don't know

Ludwig hesitated, obviously having to fight to spit out the words.

You explained it once to me

There was this book on your shelf

It was so heavy I was nearly crushed trying to lift it

And it had the most beautiful illustrations

All color very fine detail

Monks drew them you told me

And there were stories like the myths I learned about

Or simply knew I can't remember which

Of what we used to be

We were so cruel to them

Immortality can breed compassion or scorn and at first

You said you used to torture them

All of you

Every last heart in your house

You lost the essence of your shape

What you were modeled after

Time ate it away completely

Made you

Our kind

Distant

And pitiless

Ludwig let out a shuddering breath, his figure snapping into focus once more for a few precious seconds.

In the book it was a group of humans

Something fanciful

A curse or

Something else ridiculous

Fairy stories

But you said that was bullshit you used that word even back then

And explained that the universe simply has a way of culling the dominant

For humans it was the plagues

Incurable diseases a new one springing to life after the previous falls

For us

It's this

You like to call it impotence when you think you're being funny

Punishment when you're actually in its throes

A period of time for us to experience the horrors the little ants have to endure

Stripped of what we are

Until we learn the lesson again

Of what it is to fear loss

To fear the consequence of pain

To stare into the abyss

Mise en abyme

We're plucked from our macrocosm and forced into the micro

A story is created for us

A setting a background

Figures to guide us

To ensure we learn our lesson properly

To invite the joy the pain of what it is to spend eighty years a speck

And when we experience that fear

That joy

That's when we start to remember

And after everything has come back we're given a choice

To stay an ant

Live whatever left we have

A few seconds

Decades

However much the body can survive

Or to revert to this form

What the humans used to call gods

And wait to fall again

Silence smothered the island, its walls of gold fading into view again. He felt himself walk across the marble floors, the stone growing young before his eyes. Seeping back into the ground, waiting to be hewn from the earth and cut and polished and placed. The barren halls waiting for their oils, the tapestries. The plot of land before there ever was a palace, sprigs of flowers, the sky overhead and the smell of sun-soaked grasses and leaves. Stone castles. Fortresses of timber. Canvas tents. Caves. The primordial need for shelter, one he cultivated in them, instilled in them the fear of the storm, the hunger, the little pocket of nothingness at the end of their years he couldn't have hoped to understand.

They'd been so vain, his kind. He remembered that now. Born in the rivers and fields and forests the moment the first humans gathered in tribes and put a name to things. They'd kept their distance, watching at first, and once they learned enough, putting that knowledge to horrible use.

And they'd paid a horrible price.

Eons of agony. Tenfold for every lash, every death on a battlefield, every pillage, every murder they'd caused with their little whispers in the ears of suggestible men. The weight of their sin, a sin universal in every thought, every mind every religion. And it came back to him all at once, not flickering and beautiful like the match or the palace but a blacksmith's anvil on his chest, pinning him to his dying island with the weight of the memories. The guilt, the blood spilled from the first spear to the last look of anguish in his general's eyes right before he pulled the trigger.

All of the evil men.

To live would only be to meet more of them.

To watch another city be burned alive.

Smell the smoke.

Hear the cries for blood in his honor.

Hear the cries of blood for his head.

He pressed a hand against his chest, forcing air into his lungs to expel it in the pitch and tone of words.

"How do you live with this."

He reached out towards Ludwig, the match trembling as it began to lose its grip.

"It burns… God, Ludwig I don't remember it hurting this badly," he whispered, his blackened fingers passing uselessly through the mirage.

Ludwig's blue eyes fixed on him at last, the irises focusing.

It's because I failed you

I didn't reach you in time

A week and I still haven't found you

God

This

It's all my fault

I'm so sorry, Gilbert

He could only shake his head in response, too weak to do anything more. He curled in on himself, the water rushing over his legs as the island dissolved into nothing. He was returning to himself, the island was useless. Served its purpose. It was all he'd needed. All he'd been deemed fit for, just a scrap of rock in the middle of some God-forsaken sea. So far from anything his brother hadn't even been able to find him.

Pain lanced through his body, making him cry out again, the noise echoing pointlessly against the clouds, the last traces of branches stretching up out of the salt.

It didn't matter now what choice he made.

It wasn't punishment enough. He hadn't learned properly or Ludwig had helped or he'd grown beyond redemption. He would be immortal, trapped beneath the waves. An eternity freezing, waiting for humanity to come again and finally reap him. There wouldn't even be the need for an island.

"O-Oh God I'm going to die," he gasped out, suddenly able to feel the cold again as his body started to heal, nerves repairing themselves just enough to register the temperature. He fought back against the healing, for once relieved when his fingers grew black again.

He watched the frostbite spread, eating its way up his arms, cinching shut his veins. He was dimly aware that he was crying. A litany of surrender pouring out of his lips as the water ate him alive. There were only a few rocks left, the shore returning to the elements it had been before. Chlorine. Hydrogen. Carbon.

No glowing phosphorous.

He caught sight of Ludwig out of the corner of his eye, the match still clutched in his fingertips sputtering as the spray caught it.

His brother stood knee deep in the water, a furious look on his face, blue eyes sparking as the match neared the end of its track.

You aren't going to die, Ludwig said furiously, water splashing as he sank to his knees next to him.

You aren't that weak, you can't leave me alone

He opened his mouth to protest but Ludwig shoved a hand against his mouth. He tasted copper and sulfur, engine grease. Ink.

You promised, Ludwig said, pressing a hand against his face.

You _swore_

You told me you'd kill me yourself before letting me go

It was the most twisted thing I'd ever heard but I swear to God if you go back on it now I'll spend the rest of my miserable existence combing the ocean for you

I won't ever let myself die

Not until the seas dry up

Not until I've found you

And if you fucking give up now everything we had

Everything we've survived for, it won't mean anything, Gilbert! You'll just be another page in a book, you won't exist anywhere, you won't be anything and my whole world—"

Gilbert felt a weight on his chest as Ludwig rested against him, the match in his fingers a mere ember. He closed his eyes, his lungs rattling in their cage as they slowly filled with water.

"I don't care what your new name is," Ludwig said quietly, his outline fading to a dim spark of blue.

"Just please."

"Come back to me."

Gilbert opened his eyes and stared up through the crystal clear water as he slowly fell.

He held his hand in front of his face, watching the black fade from his skin. He saw the rest of the island falling with him, what was left of it. The trees turning to ice before melting away. The rocks breaking into sand. Ten spent matchsticks, their mission fulfilled, splintering into atoms.

Gilbert stared up at the dissolving chaos around him, wincing as his bones shifted back into place, skin mended. He let out a little sigh, testing the water in his lungs. Good, not great. Painful, but there'd been worse.

It would be so easy.

Just to float there.

So easy and so terrible.

Experience had taught him that suicide just tended to result in a mess.

He was pleased that he remembered that much and tested the waters again, the near-ritualistic action calming him. He'd done this on his own before, after all. There'd been a time without Ludwig, without his brother to anchor and guide him. It was harder, it was terribly lonely and the human emotions he'd collected over the years were more difficult to digest without someone there to help explain. Offer context, clarity. Compassion.

Survive.

He'd made Ludwig swear to live. But living was asking quite a bit of him, he thought. He was still sinking, still lost. Nothing but salt and water and an indestructible shell to keep him company. Reasonable that it had been downgraded to survival. Survival was basic. It was what drove the simplest virus. Survival. Through replication, through destruction. Through stubbornness.

He remembered the palace. Walking across the marble and spotting Ludwig out in the garden. His brother had fallen asleep reading under a tree, the picture of aristocratic idleness. So unlike him when he was awake. Ludwig had woken up, insisted that Gilbert was interpreting it wrong, that he was being diligent and had simply stayed up too late the night before. When Gilbert continued to tease Ludwig had thrown the word in his face. Stubborn. They both were, it ran in their little mostly-dead family. Dead was such a human word, though. Un-survived. That was more fitting.

Gilbert opened his eyes, the water around him pitch black. He slowly began to swim upwards, his heart beating steadily in his chest despite his frozen blood. It was a long, long time before his head broke the surface. He gasped for air, the cold shocking his lungs and making even him wheeze for a moment. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and scanned the horizon.

Blue.

Nothing but blue in every direction.

Survive.

It had been an order. A terrible, terrible order. And he was going to murder Ludwig for chaining him like this.

But first he had to find him.

And he had no idea where the hell he was.

Gilbert licked his split lips, and uttered the only words he could feel.

"Well, fuck."

December 25th, 2027.

Gilbert stood shivering in the cold, his hat pulled down to fully cover his ears. It was a tuke hat. Toque. Tug. Something. It was Ludwig's, actually, and it was gray and a bit too long ('Very fashionable!' his mother had commented and then proceeded to pummel him with questions about where he'd gotten it) and warm and Ludwig had tugged it off his own head the moment Gilbert said he was getting cold and plopped it on top of his. Gilbert had, of course, thought a spider (covered in fabric? Ludwig had later asked in his usual sardonic way) had landed on his head and proceeded to freak out and claw at it until he realized quite brilliantly that it was, in fact, a hat. And then there had been the requisite flustered scene where Ludwig had teased him mercilessly and Gilbert had threatened to steal the hat for good and Ludwig had said fine but that didn't count as his official Christmas present so Gilbert couldn't just get him an old sock or something and say they were even that wasn't how this was going to work he wasn't a house elf.

So Gilbert had accepted the hat and trundled home when Ludwig said he had some errands to run and that no Gilbert couldn't come with. He'd spent the rest of the day in an asinine, dreamy stupor. He had nearly scalded himself when trying to make hot chocolate (which later turned out to be a mug filled with nothing but cinnamon anyway) and had been ordered to stay on the couch unplugged from technology after his mother had caught him ready to buy a thousand dollar computer for Ludwig just because he vaguely remembered the man saying yesterday that his current one was acting up.

His parents had insisted they accompany him to the tree lighting ceremony, and no amount of whining had dissuaded them. Gilbert stood in the crowd, sandwiched between his parents, listening for Ludwig's tell-tale baritone grumblings. He perked up when he caught a few sulky notes, and jumped out of the crowd a bit to try and see.

He landed on his father's foot.

"Jesus, Gilbert, watch it!" his father snapped, hopping around on one foot and glaring at his son.

Gilbert stuck his tongue out.

"Have smaller feet. D'you see Ludwig?"

"Ludwig? Oh – the baker's kid?"

His father quickly forgot his 'pain' and scanned the crowd for a moment before letting out a little 'aha.'

"There's lover boy," he said lightly, pointing towards the back.

Gilbert was about to thank his father when the words registered. He stared up at him in shock, panic making him stumble around for words.

His mother laughed and pushed his shoulder.

"The baker might be an easy mark but we certainly aren't," she teased. "You must have muttered his name under your breath about a thousand times today. I don't even want to imagine what you two got up to last night. …Ha! Up to. Get it? Because of erect—"

"Mother I swear to God the next thing out of your mouth better be 'erecting a tree' or some other smooth save because I cannot handle this right now!" Gilbert said tersely, his voice getting higher and higher pitched with every word.

Both of his parents laughed like the evil sons of bitches they were, but then his father gave his back a light little touch.

"Go on, then," he said, throwing his son a wink. "I already had the gay freak out when your mother pointed out how you seemed to fixate a bit too much on male clothing models. Oh, and also that you had a gigantic stash of gay pornography we found on the family computer labeled 'Homework.' That was also a slight tip off."

Gilbert buried his head in his hands but let himself be pushed backwards through the crowd.

"Why God didn't you let me have my own computer from an earlier age," he groaned, mortified beyond all belief. He caught the sound of Ludwig's voice again, and a moment later his mother's, her tone much more subdued.

"Go on, honey," she said quietly. "There will be other trees to light with us later. You don't get another chance like this."

"He's way out of your league, looks wise," his father absently commented. "I bet his personality is utter shi – ouch! Watch it, pointy elbows."

"Watch it yourself, big mouth, our son is beautiful," his mother said with a little sniff, gently ushering Gilbert on. She smiled at him and Gilbert returned the gesture with a completely lost one of his own.

"I – did you pick up this nonchalant attitude from a television show or somethin'?" he asked quietly. They both laughed, but his father shook his head, wrapping an arm around his mother's shoulder.

"We can talk about that later." He lifted his chin slightly, gesturing towards the back of the crowd. "He's looking for you."

Gilbert nodded and let out a slow breath, his feet taking him two steps in Ludwig's direction. He could see the taller man towards the back, glancing around with a slightly anxious look on his face that made Gilbert's heart melt slightly.

He suddenly paused, and looked over his shoulder at his parents. Their backs were to him, his father's arm still around his mother's shoulders, and for a moment a burst of anxiety took hold of him and made him want to run back and embrace them. Stay with them and let Ludwig keep searching because they were his family and they loved him and really Ludwig was out of his league and was it worth ruining what otherwise had been a perfect break for something so unsure?

He faltered, caught between the two for one moment before he slowly turned away. They would be there. There would be other trees, other Christmases. Other times to be a good son. There always were more.

He pushed his way through the crowd, laughing when Ludwig suddenly spotted him, the look of obvious relief on the man's face too funny to let pass without comment.

"Hey," he said lightly, stopping just in front of the younger man. "Lose somethin'?"

"You still have my hat," Ludwig noted, sounding a bit grouchy about the fact.

Gilbert laughed again and tugged the hat more firmly onto his head.

"I thought it was a not-a-Christmas present," he said cheekily.

"I said it _wasn't_ your Christmas present. You just can't ever seem to correctly interpret emphasis," Ludwig said dryly, reaching out to brush a bit of snow off of Gilbert's shoulders. It was starting to fall, big, heavy flakes that quickly piled up around them.

Gilbert was about to answer something else no doubt stunningly witty when the mayor took her place at the podium and began to speak. He fell politely silent to listen, but slowly, slowly leaned against Ludwig. A gloved hand sought his own, and he took it without hesitation, giving Ludwig's fingers a little squeeze.

"I'm glad you came," Ludwig said quietly, keeping his voice low so no one else in the pressed-in crowd could hear.

"After slaving away over this monstrosity? Fuck yes I came. I want my credit," Gilbert murmured back, tilting his head to grin up at Ludwig.

The younger man looked exasperated for a moment before a slightly troubled look took hold of him.

"I actually… I have something I wanted to ask you about."

His free hand fished about in his pocket for something. He withdrew a small piece of paper and handed it towards Gilbert.

"I've carried this in my wallet since I can remember," he said quietly. "I don't remember writing it. I don't really remember what it means, it could just be a prank or… I don't know. It has about as much meaning as those little messages in fortune cookies. Mildly funny if you add 'in bed' at the end but otherwise pointless."

Gilbert frowned and let go of Ludwig's hand so he could open the piece of paper. There were only two words on it.

"'Find him?'" he read aloud, adding the question mark because it made no fucking sense.

Ludwig nodded, his expression serious.

"That piece of paper is the only reason I'm here," he said, his voice barely audible above the enthusiasm of the crowd, counting down from thirty. "I was going to stay in Saarland like I usually do, but for some reason one day about two weeks ago when I was paying for something – a cup of coffee I think – I happened to see this piece of paper shoved in my wallet and this… compulsion to come home came over me. Not even a compulsion really. Like the feeling you get when you're incredibly anxious you've left the toaster oven on at home and you have to go back and check even though you know without a doubt that you never turned it on in the first place. I had to come back and I didn't really know why until you came over and talked to me. Not the first day, you were just kind of weird and obnoxiously loud then but later, I…"

He fell silent, and the crowd reached twenty.

Gilbert smoothed his fingers over the paper, the even, neat script clearly Ludwig's. He'd seen him write enough in the ledger book over the past few days to know. Every angle perfect. Crisp. Legible. Like he'd copied it out of a typography book.

Find him.

Gilbert tilted his head back, an itching in his brain that was starting to tear.

"I'm him."

He stated the words. No question mark needed.

Ludwig nodded, and the crowd reached ten.

"And you've found me."

Ludwig's lips quirked up in a little, embarrassed smile.

"I guess I have," he said quietly. "But I think."

The crowd reached five.

"I think I've been looking for you."

Two.

"For a very long time."

One.

The tree burst into life, the lights shining, brilliant arcs. The crowd burst into cheers, patting the crew on the back, congratulating them. Hugging and kissing and teasing each other with the old familiarity traditions brought.

Gilbert was deaf to it all, and stared at the piece of paper, the two simple words echoing in his head.

Find him.

There was a tugging in his mind. The smell of salt and grease. Gunpowder summer. But it was overshadowed by other things. His apartment in Berlin. His job. His friends, his parents. He was living. Every day he was older but still living and he knew, somehow, that if he let his concentration slip, if one little doubt crossed his mind it would all be over. He could lose everything. He would watch his parents die, he would watch himself grow old in the mirror. He could lose his job, he could lose his apartment, his friends. He could even lose Ludwig, might lose him the next day and he couldn't, he couldn't watch him go he knew somehow he'd been searching too, no paper in his wallet but the words still engraved on his very bones, in his flesh. Find him. Or you will lose him.

Loss.

His heart gave a horrible lurch and he quickly lifted his head, the tree and the crowd and his parents' backs perfectly normal before his eyes. He drank in the sight desperately, clinging to reality like a drowning man off a sinking coast.

They were here, everything was here. His parents laughing, the tree, the village where he grew up, the music shop where he'd struggled for years to try and learn the violin, the café he'd worked summers at, his childhood home tucked back in the trees, the woods where he used to play, cowboys and police and robbers and astronauts and civil engineers and sea captains. He hadn't lost it, not yet, everything was here. It would always be here, he would make sure of that somehow. He wouldn't lose anything, he couldn't, the mere thought made him sick he loved this he loved his life he loved living. He had everything, the tree the crowd, his family. Everything was here.

He tried to relax. To repeat his mantra. Embalm the scene in a snow globe to hold forever, just as it was. No change. To change would be to lose and he wanted everything as it was. Everything here, his parents, the tree, the village, Ludwig.

But Ludwig was going back to Saarland.

Reality lost some of its vibrancy.

Ludwig would leave.

He was going to go, he would leave, could forget about him. There were other people in the world, other beings, ordinary like him. More charming and even if Ludwig had been looking for him for a long time there was no reason for him to stay. None at all, nothing to keep him here, keep him his, keep him from leaving.

But no. No everything had to be here, everything perfect, no impermanence, couldn't be allowed wouldn't be allowed.

Gilbert stumbled forward a bit as he was patted on the back, but he barely felt the touch. He stared at the snow, the moonlight catching every footprint. There were hundreds of them, the snow nearly trampled into oblivion, nothing new to fill in the cracks. But soon the wind would come and the storms and there would be nothing left. He could feel it already as panic slowly took hold of him, the thought of a life alone, burying his parents, his friends, himself rotting underneath the earth unable to think or breathe, to not exist to simply not be the enormity of his terror was too much and with a desperate jerk he lifted his head to find his parents, their presence only a comforting balm. They were here. Everyone was here, the footprints in the snow, the lights on the tree, the smell of bread from the bakery.

And then they were gone.

There was no puff of smoke. No great noise or flash of light. One minute they simply were, and the next they simply weren't. A little current of air rushed to fill the empty space, making a quiet popping noise as the atoms collided.

It was still bright out, the moon illuminating the near pristine snow. Two sets of prints marred it.

Gilbert was left staring at the barren tree, a massive, ancient conifer rooted into the ground. He slowly sank to his knees, the conifer looming in his vision. He barely felt the pain. There was nothing to fix, really. He tugged off his gloves and reached up to take out his contacts when his eyes adjusted, but that was it. He heard Ludwig groan and spared his brother a little glance before returning his gaze to the snow. He could sense the town around him now. Abandoned. No hearts beating anywhere within fifty miles, save for Ludwig's. He knew if he looked up the shops would be empty. Boarded. The town hall in ruins.

He felt Ludwig fall next to him, and when he finally managed to lift his head enough to look his brother in the face, he was bitterly happy to see the hurt and betrayal he felt reflected in Ludwig's expression.

Ludwig turned his head slowly, silently taking in the ruins, before he finally spoke.

"We were happy."

Gilbert nodded, scrubbing at his face.

"We were."

Silence strangled the remnants of the town.

"I don't understand."

Gilbert glanced over at his brother, feeling dull and empty.

"Understand what?"

Ludwig let out a slow breath, stubbornly ignoring the tears streaming down his face.

"I didn't want to come back to this," he said quietly. "I had a family, you had a family, there was no war. No sickness, we'd finally found each other. Why – I don't… understand why…"

Gilbert closed his eyes, settling reluctantly back into his body.

"I wasn't brave this time either," he said dully, staring up at the moon. "I panicked. Just for a moment, but apparently it was enough. I thought about you and my parents –" He suddenly burst out laughing, the noise distorted against the wooden windows of the store front.

"They didn't even have names. None that I can remember," he laughed, falling back into the snow. "I'm sure they must have, they wouldn't be very convincing without names, but God I can't remember them. They were just Mom and Dad, that's all…"

He pressed his hands against his eyes, still laughing even as tears streamed down his cheeks. He heard Ludwig shift and felt warmth against his side as his brother slowly lay down in the snow with him, curling up against his side.

"That's very funny," Ludwig said quietly, his voice unsure but willing to try playing. "I… I don't remember mine either but I think I'll wait until later to laugh."

Gilbert lowered one hand to stare incredulously at his brother, a stubborn smile still on his face.

"God you stupid fuck…" he said softly, his voice wavering. Very slightly. "Twenty years as one of them and you still can't learn when to laugh properly. You are absolutely hopeless."

He tugged Ludwig close, resting a hand against the top of his head, lightly rubbing his brother's back.

"I never was as good at retaining things as you," Ludwig mumbled, holding on to Gilbert's hand tightly. "Even this time, what I just had is starting to blur. The bakery, I… my… mother. The one I had." He shook his head, glancing off to the side. "I think she had blonde hair. I can't even remember more than that. Just a warm feeling of being around her. Or the ovens. It's all… jumbled and blurred. I can't separate the pieces enough to make sense of them. I think it's because I'm still so young. The older ones always seem to have a harder time transitioning. Too much easily sticks in a logical order. They can line up the pieces, decades at a time, spanning back and forth but for me… Well. Why do you think I had to write the note. Anything more specific kept getting erased but after last time I couldn't… I didn't want to risk it."

Gilbert laughed again, the noise much less empty.

"That's my little brother," he said, a hint of weary pride in his voice. "Always looking for loopholes in cosmic logic."

"That's me," Ludwig echoed, closing his eyes. "Ludwig, cosmic space lawyer to the stars."

Gilbert chuckled appreciatively, but his hand tightened even more around Ludwig's.

They lay there together in the snow. Gilbert watched the moon cross the sky, listening to the woods whisper to them, welcoming them home.

Except that this time, he'd actually had one. A place to come home to. And that was the irony, wasn't it. That the moment they truly felt human, truly felt the pain and fear of the clock that they'd be wrenched off the face of it again. Set down to watch the pendulum tick until the next time. Until the next family they'd grow to love or the next bitter life alone.

He could still remember it clearly. His first day of college. How scared he'd been. Why hadn't it happened then, he wondered. Was a child's fear too shallow. Or did he just have too much faith in his parents. The little puppets the universe had molded. Accepting, stern. Kind. Exasperated at just the right times. Stuffed full of pop culture references and recipes for pancakes and holiday traditions they'd done their whole lives for the past five years. Everything to make him love them. Fear for their coffins.

Gilbert choked back an angry sob, pressing a hand against his face.

He heard Ludwig shift, felt the press of his brother's hand against his cheek, the deep baritone.

"I know it wasn't fair, Gilbert," he said quietly, his voice carrying a hint of anger. "Not this time. I'd tear the fabric of it if I could but I'm too scared I'd rip myself instead."

"S-Shut up, just for a moment, Lutz, please," Gilbert bit out, his voice thick with tears. "Just let me hold my funeral. I-It's tradition. After the eulogy I'll – I'll be back with you."

He felt Ludwig sigh, but his brother fell obediently silent. Perfect little brother. Challenging him when needed and surrendering when prudence dictated.

Gilbert let out a shuddering sigh, letting the beat of their hearts comfort him. Pockets of humanity's warmth. Of others like Mom and Dad. The humans who made him want to survive, and the brother who made him want to live beyond that.

The pain faded. As it was bound to with them. Nothing stayed. Papercuts lasted a second at most. Broken bones a day. What were two imaginaries next to that.

"It was a good idea though. The little paper," Gilbert said suddenly, speech helping ease the grief. Individual humans were difficult to mourn for long, anyway. He clung to their images, though. If he could keep them there for a decade, they were there for good, usually. He had flashcards somewhere. In his real apartment in Berlin, probably. Next to Ludwig's collection of useless and outdated World Books.

Ludwig nodded and sat up, his fingers burying in Gilbert's hair and tugging gently like he'd done in the small, serial killer's room above the bakery.

"I'd tried a few times before," he admitted, obviously desperate for some logical thread of conversation to hold onto as the baker drowned in decades of collapsed memories. "But either I would lose the paper during the transition or it would be blank. And even this time there was some impetus. Something that made it important. Of course I hardly ever looked at the thing. It was just a scrap I happened to not throw away." He smiled grimly, his blue eyes growing dark. "I'm very tired of this and yet I won't go. Not until you're ready. So I have to find you as quickly as possible. Before you're brave when I'm not around and I make the wrong choice."

"I'm always brave," Gilbert muttered obstinately, clinging to his brother's hand. "I'm just not brave when it comes to that. And who is, really. We've seen them die in the thousands; how many actually went peacefully into that good night."

"The most tired," Ludwig said quietly, closing his eyes. "Which I hope we become only when the world is sick of us and not us of it."

Gilbert gave a sharp nod and leaned against Ludwig, running his finger along the edge of his brother's coat sleeve.

"You were very cute this time," he finally said, closing his eyes as well. "I like it when you're bitchy."

The comment earned him a hit to the head, and he pitched forward slightly, laughing a bit when he knew his brother's face had turned red.

"You were!" he insisted, grinning up at Ludwig. "I don't think you've ever talked back to me that much. During war it's always very 'yes sir' or 'no sir' between us – the sex is rather boring then too, I hate having to be all hush hush when it's not a part of some kink. And last time the whole… diplomat and interpreter thing? I just kind of felt like I was taking advantage of you."

"You were," Ludwig said bluntly, rolling his eyes just a bit to hide his nearly invisible smile. "I just let you. Mostly because you got so stupidly flustered and kept babbling about impropriety."

"Oh, you wish, big shot," Gilbert muttered, socking his brother in the arm. "I swear you get sassier with every decade. What happened to the sweet, quietly psychopathic boy I used to know." He fiddled with the ring around his neck, falling into a comfortable silence, two more names added to his list to repeat every night with his prayers.

"We need a better system," Ludwig said suddenly, tugging on Gilbert's hair again to get him to pay attention.

Gilbert scowled and elbowed his brother for the mistreatment, but gave him a curious look.

"Oh? Like…?"

Ludwig's cheeks flushed, and he mumbled, "I didn't say I had an idea, just that we need one."

"Very helpful, I think the years spent at some two-bit university have addled your once brilliant brain," Gilbert said dryly.

"Saarland isn't two-bi—I'm not going to argue about this," Ludwig said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest, a bit of the baker's son returning to his soldier posture. "But my point stands. A scrap of paper is too easily destroyed or might not be carried with us. Any suggestions?"

Gilbert hummed quietly and glanced up at the sky, the stars streaking overhead. Brief memories landed in his vision, stargazing with his father, lying on his back on a cold rock, listening to the crickets in the forest. All with the same stars above. All sweeter for their transience.

Even stars had to die. The same ones he'd watched as a child glowed brighter now. Their swan song.

He held his brother's hand tightly as they watched the stars burst together.

It was a long while before he stirred again.

Gilbert tugged on Ludwig's hand, the easy 'hm?' in return making him smile.

"I have an idea," he said quietly, leaning his head against Ludwig's shoulder.

Ludwig raised an eyebrow, wrapping an arm around Gilbert's shoulders.

"And?"

"You're not going to like it," he warned.

Ludwig snorted.

"I don't like many of your ideas. How is this any different."

"See, again with the snar—okay I don't have time to nitpick your personality foibles now," Gilbert muttered, the grin still on his face. He ran his fingers down Ludwig's forearm, feeling the warm skin underneath his touch. On impulse he leaned up to kiss him, breath crystallizing in the frigid air.

There was no loss to fear.

Not yet.

Not ever if he clung to cowardice and refused to go quietly.

He pulled away a bit, nuzzling his cold nose against Ludwig's, laughing when his brother tried to jerk away, stopped by a firm hand to the back of his head. Ludwig bore the cold silently after that, but he caught Gilbert's gaze, prompting him to talk or move. One of the two.

Gilbert's smile widened and he carded his fingers through Ludwig's hair, leaning over to murmur in his ear.

"You really aren't going to like it. But I think it could work. How about we –

December 18th, 2057.

Ludwig hadn't been able to sleep.

The hotel was too hot – they insisted on taking away air temperature control and then gave him nothing but a duvet to sleep under fucking ridiculous in this climate – and he'd lain awake tossing and turning and sweating for what felt like hours before he'd finally given up.

A quick bout of yoga to calm his nerves and a bath killed an hour. Early morning news did the rest.

At five thirty he headed to breakfast, forcing down some mystery meat sausage patties and elderly tomatoes before he went back upstairs, brushed his teeth, checked the room for forgotten belongings, and then left.

It was only a five minute ride to the airport. The airline had sent a town car, good of them, and he arrived at his gate nearly half an hour before his scheduled arrival time.

He stood by the walkway, idly scratching at his arm. It itched. Always had, ever since he'd gotten the –

He averted his gaze, a little scowl on his face when he realized several women were staring at him openly, their mouths slightly agape. A pilot's uniform tended to do that. He wasn't even in the air force anymore and it still bought all kind of attention. During his training flights stewards had all but thrown themselves at him. Constant offers of coffee, snacks, in-flight entertainment, Sky Mall magazines. How he was expected to read those while not killing everyone on board was a bit of a mystery to him, but he didn't want to bother engaging in conversation to ask for an explanation. Polite refusals, nods, and terse smiles.

He usually let his co-pilot do the talking. The one time he'd done the announcements he'd made the business section cry. And half of coach. Apparently being frank wasn't valued when you weren't in personal control of your own trajectory.

Why the hell he'd chosen to become a commercial pilot was beyond him. No, scratch that. He remembered it plain as day. Stevens, fucking Stevens with his irritating advice that sounded so unbelievably sound when he was talking at a mile a minute in the academy and turned out to be nothing but dead ends and financial insolvency. Waking up at four in the morning with three women, two men, and half of a pizza in your bed. Still fully clothed. Somehow made it worse.

Ludwig shuddered and sipped at his coffee to try and erase the image from his mind. There hadn't been enough STI tests in the world to rid him of the paranoia he'd become intimately acquainted with after that night. Not to mention his entrenched distrust of anyone even remotely salacious. If it were socially acceptable to wear surgical gloves at all times he doubted his skin would ever see the proper light of day again. Hand condoms.

Nope didn't want to think that.

Bad metaphor.

He shook his head again and let out a frustrated noise. Partner. His partner, his co-pilot needed to get there. And the stewards. Sleepy passengers were already starting to doze off by the door; their flight left in an hour. Still had to do the check list, confirm any route changes. Get acquainted somewhat. This would be his first real flight, and he intended to play it by the books.

The waiting area continued to fill up, and Ludwig did his best to blend into the wall, not liking the myriad of stares directed his way. At his hair, his uniform, his tattoo, his glasses. The tattoo was mostly hidden, thank God, but fucking Stevens. Probably. Ludwig didn't even remember getting it, or the impetus for the ink, which probably meant he'd been too plastered to think straight. Had he been sober he wouldn't have gotten one at all, first of all, no matter how many guys in the force had one, and secondly, it wouldn't have been of a compass. The needle wasn't even pointing north, and the ill-thought-out design made him cringe. Even if it was done in a tasteful, solid black ink. Ornate compass too, fine detail, but why the hell was the needle pointing East. Compass needles were supposed to point north. God. Dammit. He couldn't stand to look at it, but removal looked even worse. Scarring. Not something he relished doing after serving in active duty and avoiding any and all major injuries.

He scratched absently at his inner forearm where the tattoo was, scanning the crowd for any sign of his company's uniform. It was getting close to departure time. Annoyingly close.

Just when he was about to lose it and call his supervisor to do some therapeutic yelling and shaming, he spotted a familiar flash of dark blue and gold. A moment later another man came sauntering into view, his overnight bag slung over his shoulder. He was young – only a few years older than Ludwig by the sight of it, thirty-two at the most – but his bright blond hair looked almost like a sickly gray. He was shorter, not stocky but solid, built like a swimmer, and something about the arrogant toss of his head made Ludwig think grimly to himself, 'Army.' There was no mistaking the swagger. Conceited little shits.

The man pulled up in front of him, one eyebrow raised and a little grin on his face.

Ludwig opened his mouth to greet the man, but before he could the other pilot was holding out his hand and talking.

God so much talking.

"You must be Ludwig. Didn't catch the last name, not important. I like to do the talking on my flights so don't touch the mic. Right so we've got a few minutes to get acquainted with the cockpit – same as any third generation model, promise – and each other – guessing from the stare you're military too, Navy? Air force? God I hope Navy. Only decent pilots in the whole damn company come from the Navy. Can land on those carriers like nobody's business. Impressive as hell. Great to have when the passengers are getting unruly, just have them bark over the intercom and listen to the company's approval rate take a nosedive, fucking hilarious."

Before Ludwig could get a name in edgewise he found himself being herded into the plane and set down in the copilot's seat. He stared blankly at the older man and then pointed towards himself.

"I have a last name," he said blandly. "It's on my nametag. Right here. Where everyone else wears theirs."

The other pilot just shrugged and sipped at his coffee, an easy, relaxed smile on his face.

"Bad eyes. I'd have to practically snuggle with your chest to read it."

Ludwig stared at the older man again.

"…You're a pilot."

The man shrugged his shoulders again, absently flicking a few switches to start the maintenance check sequence, glancing at Ludwig out of the corner of his eye.

"I know. I tried explaining it to them during the interview process but they seemed too charmed by my abrasively good looks to worry about early onset blindness. And who am I to stop a vanity hire?"

Ludwig clenched his jaw, trying to remain calm. He knew the man was joking, it was painfully obvious he could see, but the joke wasn't _funny _it was just sort of arrogant and self-servicing and why the hell didn't the man just read his fucking nametag?!

"Oh this is going to be a joy," he muttered to himself, thanking God all their flights were local that day.

Next to him the man laughed and wrinkled his nose.

"Really? 'Cause I was starting to think this was going to be one of those 'tune the asshole out until the day's over' kind of jobs. Relax. Just a bit, for God's sake, it won't kill you."

Ludwig merely grunted in response, pretending to be absorbed in his clipboard.

He felt a little tap against his knee and ignored it. Another tap and he swatted at the man's hand, muttering, "No, thank you."

He heard the man sigh and a moment later he felt something rest atop his head. He recognized what it was an instant before he moved, and he felt his blood start to boil.

"Get your fucking coffee off of my head," he said quietly, being careful to enunciate every syllable.

"No. It's a performance art piece."

Ludwig heard the clipboard crack as his fingers dug into the cheap wood.

"…"

He didn't even know the man's name yet. What else threatening could he say. Normally just a growled name worked. Fuck.

"…You."

Close enough.

He heard the other pilot snicker, but a moment later the coffee was gone. Ludwig stood up straight again and fixed his co-pilot with a steely glare.

The man merely smiled back and wiggled his fingers, but his eyes were narrowed.

"You weren't paying attention," he said lightly, downing the rest of the coffee and setting the empty cup down. "I asked if you ran specs for the third engine yet."

Ludwig blinked in surprise, shocked that he was being asked an actual technical question.

"I—yes," he said, his earlier irritation all but forgotten. "Everything checks, did you—"

"Just finished running two and four, slight give on two but nothing major, might want to have it looked at, see if it's shifted in flight, but I suspect it's just a coupling come loose on the outer casing, everything else seems to be holding fine," the other pilot said distractedly, holding the printouts towards Ludwig. The older man quirked a grin in his direction as Ludwig accepted the papers.

"Gilbert. By the way. Good to have you."

"Ludwi—you already know my name," Ludwig muttered, quickly glancing over the papers. He set them down and started the second calibration test, turning to ask his co-pilot (Gilbert, always bad with names) a question, but stopped when he caught sight of a little black mark peeking out from underneath the other man's sleeve.

He fell still for a moment, just long enough to watch the sleeve move back a bit more, exposing the tattoo on the man's inner forearm.

Compass.

Black work, needle facing –

"God it's an epidemic," he muttered, resting his hand over the compass on his own wrist.

"Hm?"

Gilbert glanced his way, a look of polite interest on his face.

Ludwig shook his head and mumbled, "Nothing," before getting back to work.

They finished running the checks in silence, falling still when the last of the prep work was done and the passengers began to file in.

Ludwig risked a glance at the other man, just before the steward shut the door to their cabin. He worried at his lower lip for a second and then had to ask.

"Do you know anyone named Stevens?"

"Stevens?"

Gilbert furrowed his brow and then shook his head.

"No. Sounds like an asshole of a name, though. Why?"

Ludwig gestured vaguely towards Gilbert's wrist.

"The tattoo. It's uh—"

Gilbert's face immediately turned bright red and he let out a weak laugh.

"Ah… shit. Busted, huh?"

He pulled back his sleeve, exposing the tattoo. Ludwig's eyes widened slightly and he stared in shock.

Compass.

Black work, needle facing West.

"Who's Stevens?"

"Just some asshole," Ludwig muttered, adjusting his headset as he turned away.

"…Okay."

The mild confusion and annoyance in Gilbert's tone didn't sit well with Ludwig. He hunched over a bit, warring with himself before he finally pulled back his own sleeve.

It took Gilbert a moment.

"…Why the hell isn't it pointing North."

Ludwig shook his head, a light flush on his face.

"Like you're one to talk. Any chance you've been to a tattoo parlor anywhere in San Diego?"

"Never set foot on American soil. Trained on an American simulator, though. Fracas or some company like that."

"Brussels?"

Gilbert shook his head, his lips quirking up in a grin.

"Maybe there's just a database of shitty tattoos to give to absolutely smashed guys," he said, turning back to his controls with a little laugh. "International conspiracy. Secret public shame."

"How can shame be both secret and public, that doesn't make any fucking sense," Ludwig said, rolling his eyes, but there was still a troubled look on his face.

"All international conspiracists love a good paradox. Don't question it."

"Sure. I—oh dammit."

Ludwig gestured towards the intercom, and with a little wink and a mouthed "on it," Gilbert grabbed the mic.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, it's a balmy four degrees here in beautiful Frankfurt, if you bear with us for just a moment while we run some last minute inspections we'll be off the ground in no time," he said cheerfully, his eyes flicking to the side to study Ludwig every so often. Ludwig did his best to ignore the little glances, but his hand rested self-consciously over his tattoo, hidden underneath his sleeve.

Gilbert hung the mic back up, and the cabin fell silent for nearly a minute before he spoke again.

"Little weird, though."

His lips quirked up in a slightly nervous grin and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Almost, uh. Almost makes me wanna ask you out t' dinner t' talk about it. What're you doin' tonight in Madrid?"

Ludwig's eyes widened in surprise, but before he could formulate a logical response he found himself saying dryly, "Anything but tapas. Not really an ideal food to try and slog one's way through while discussing embarrassing international tattoo conspiracy or whatever bullshit – fuck. I can't play this. Just yes. Sure. Dinner is – is food."

"Dinner is food," Gilbert echoed, a look of slight relief on his face. "Poetry." He laughed as he started to queue up the taxi sequence. He smiled at Ludwig again, and after a moment the younger man returned the gesture with a slightly tense one of his own.

"Like to see you try and do better," Ludwig muttered, flicking on his headset. He let out a slow breath and glanced down at his arm again. Next to him he could hear Gilbert conversing with one of the stewards who had stuck his head inside the cabin, and then blaring in his ear the control tower.

"One niner one seven you are cleared for takeoff."

"Roger that, control," Ludwig said, sparing Gilbert one last glance. His co-pilot caught him looking and with a little grin pointed to his eyes and then out the window, mouthing, "Focus, Ludwig."

Ludwig felt his cheeks turn red and he quickly looked away, forgetting the sequence code for a moment.

He cleared his throat, biting his lip to keep from saying anything else stupid.

God what the hell was he doing.

Conversation from a mere coincidence.

He'd lost his edge.

His hands tightened on the controls, and a little burst of cold dredged his skin. The ink felt heavy in his arm, but he ignored it and forced himself back into the present.

Later.

There'd always be later.

"Roger that, control," he repeated, his eyes narrowing as he focused.

"Exit code two zero five se—

-Fin-


End file.
